A degloving injury occurs when skin and underlying soft tissue are forcibly separated from the muscles, connective tissue, or bone beneath them. The name comes from the way a glove is removed from a hand, but these traumatic injuries can affect nearly any part of the body.
Degloving injuries are medical emergencies. They may cause severe blood loss, tissue death, infection, permanent disability, or amputation. Some are immediately visible, while others remain hidden beneath unbroken skin and may not be diagnosed until symptoms worsen.
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What Is a Degloving Injury?
The skin receives blood through vessels connected to deeper tissue. During a degloving accident, a powerful pulling, twisting, or shearing force disrupts those connections. The damage may affect skin, fat, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, tendons, and bones.
There are two principal types of degloving injuries:
Open Degloving Injuries
In an open injury, the skin is torn away, and the underlying tissue is exposed. Part of the skin may remain attached as a flap, or it may be completely separated from the body.
Open degloving injuries commonly affect the hands, fingers, feet, legs, arms, and scalp. Because the protective skin barrier has been seriously damaged, the victim faces a substantial risk of bleeding, contamination, and infection.
Closed Degloving Injuries
A closed degloving injury happens beneath skin that initially appears intact. The skin and fatty tissue separate from the underlying fascia, creating a space in which blood, lymphatic fluid, and damaged tissue may accumulate.
This condition is sometimes called a Morel-Lavallée lesion, particularly when it develops around the hip, thigh, or pelvis.
Common Causes of Degloving Injuries
Degloving injuries usually involve substantial force.
Common causes include:
- Car crashes
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle collisions
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Industrial machinery accidents
- Construction accidents
- Farm and agricultural equipment
- Conveyor belts, rollers, and power tools
- Workplace accidents
- Falls
- Animal attacks
Motorcycle riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians may be particularly vulnerable when a limb becomes trapped beneath a vehicle or is dragged across the pavement. Workers can suffer similar injuries when clothing, gloves, hands, or arms become caught in improperly guarded machinery.
Symptoms and Warning Signs
An open degloving injury is usually obvious. However, closed injuries may be harder to recognize.
Warning signs can include:
- Rapid or persistent swelling
- Extensive bruising
- A soft or fluid-filled area beneath the skin
- Unusual movement of the skin over deeper tissue
- Numbness or reduced sensation
- Increasing pain or tightness
- Skin discoloration or temperature changes
- A lump that develops after an accident
Symptoms of an internal injury may appear hours or days after the trauma. Anyone who develops significant swelling, bruising, numbness, or worsening pain after a high-energy accident should seek immediate medical evaluation.
How Are Degloving Injuries Diagnosed?
Doctors begin by examining the affected area, checking circulation and sensation, and identifying fractures or other trauma. Open wounds may require immediate surgical exploration.
Ultrasounds, CT scans, and MRIs can help diagnose closed injuries. MRI is especially useful for identifying the location and size of a fluid collection and determining whether a chronic capsule has formed around it.
Early diagnosis matters. Delayed treatment can allow fluid to accumulate and skin to lose its blood supply, increasing the risk of infection, tissue death, and more extensive surgery.
Treatment for a Degloving Injury
Treatment depends on the injury’s location, size, depth, and effect on surrounding tissue. Medical teams must control bleeding, remove contamination, preserve viable tissue, prevent infection, and restore as much function as possible.
Treatment may include:
- Cleaning and surgically removing dead or contaminated tissue
- Repairing damaged blood vessels, nerves, tendons, or bones
- Draining accumulated blood and lymphatic fluid
- Compression therapy for selected small, closed injuries
- Antibiotics and infection monitoring
- Reattaching viable skin
- Skin grafts or tissue-flap reconstruction
- Negative-pressure wound therapy
- Repeated surgeries
- Amputation, when a limb or digit cannot be saved
Serious cases may require coordinated care from trauma surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, vascular specialists, and rehabilitation professionals.
Recovery and Long-Term Complications
Recovery may take months or longer. Victims can require repeated operations, extended hospital stays, wound care, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and reconstructive procedures.
Possible complications include infection, recurring fluid buildup, skin necrosis, nerve damage, chronic pain, reduced strength, limited movement, disfigurement, and permanent scarring. Some people lose sensation or function in the affected body part. Others must adjust to an amputation or permanent physical restrictions.
The psychological effects can also be substantial. A victim may experience anxiety, depression, sleep problems, post-traumatic stress, or distress related to visible scarring and changes in appearance.
Potential Compensation After a Degloving Accident
A person injured because of another party’s negligence may have grounds for a personal injury claim. Depending on how the accident occurred, a responsible party could include a careless driver, trucking company, property owner, employer, contractor, equipment manufacturer, or another business.
Potential compensation may cover:
- Emergency treatment and hospitalization
- Surgeries, medication, and follow-up care
- Rehabilitation and assistive equipment
- Future medical and reconstruction expenses
- Lost wages and diminished earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Scarring, disfigurement, or disability
- Loss of enjoyment of life
Every case is different. Establishing liability generally requires evidence showing how the accident happened, who owed the victim a duty of care, how that duty was breached, and how the breach caused the injury.
Contact the Chula Vista Personal Injury Lawyers at Mission Personal Injury Lawyers for a Free Consultation
A degloving injury can create lifelong medical, financial, and emotional consequences. Mission Personal Injury Lawyers can investigate how the accident occurred, identify potentially liable parties, document the victim’s current and future losses, and handle negotiations with insurers while the injured person focuses on recovery.
If you or a loved one suffered a degloving injury because of another party’s negligence, contact our law offices at (619) 722-3032 for a free consultation with a Chula Vista personal injury lawyer.