The tow truck pulls away with your vehicle on the deck, and for the first time since the impact, it’s quiet. The adrenaline is wearing off. Someone is coming to pick you up. And the honest thought running through most people’s heads at that moment is some version of well, at least I’m okay.
Maybe you are. But that’s a conclusion worth checking rather than assuming, and the next three days are when checking is easiest.
We were reminded of this recently by an unlikely source. The team at Freddy Tow Co., a veteran-owned Fredericton towing company, wrote a guide to what to do after a car accident that walks through scene safety, the tow, and the insurance call. What stood out to us was their last step, the one they call the step everyone skips. Their observation, from years of showing up at collisions across the greater Fredericton area, is that the person insisting they’re fine at the roadside is often the one moving stiffly a week later.
That matches what we see from the other end. Here’s how to use the first 72 hours well.
Hour 0 to 12: Let the adrenaline finish leaving
A collision triggers a full stress response. Your body floods with adrenaline and cortisol, your muscles brace, and pain signalling gets turned down. That’s useful in the moment and misleading afterward. Plenty of people walk away from a crash feeling fine and wake up the next morning barely able to turn their head.
So in the first half-day, the goal isn’t to decide whether you’re injured. It’s to gather information and stay open:
- Say “I’m not sure yet” rather than “I’m fine.” At the scene, on the phone with your insurer, to the officer taking the report. It’s accurate, and it doesn’t lock you into a position you may need to walk back.
- Write down what your body did. Which direction were you hit from? Were you looking straight ahead or turned? Did your head contact anything? Did the airbags deploy? Were you braced or relaxed? These details genuinely change what we look for at an assessment, and memory for them fades fast.
- Note anything odd, even if it seems unrelated. Ringing ears, a headache behind the eyes, nausea, trouble finding words, feeling foggy or unusually tired all matter. We wrote about the difference between whiplash and concussion because the two overlap and often travel together.
Hour 12 to 48: When symptoms usually arrive
This is the window when soft-tissue injury tends to announce itself. Neck and upper back stiffness, headaches starting at the base of the skull, shoulder or jaw tightness, mid-back pain from the seatbelt, low back pain from the pelvis being loaded sideways.
Two things to know about this window.
The first is that severity of vehicle damage is a poor predictor of injury. Tow operators and repair shops see it constantly: the bumper barely scuffed, and the occupant has a rough month ahead. The vehicle is engineered to absorb and dissipate energy; your neck isn’t. A low-speed rear-end collision can generate enough head acceleration to strain the tissues that hold your cervical spine in position, and the visible damage tells you almost nothing about it.
The second is that “it’ll settle down on its own” is sometimes true and sometimes the start of a longer problem. Soft tissue heals, but it heals in whatever position and pattern it’s left in. Restricted movement that goes unaddressed for months tends to become the new normal, with compensations layered on top. We’ve laid out what typically happens over the weeks that follow in our car accident recovery timeline, and why pain often shows up days after a car accident in the first place.
Hour 48 to 72: Get assessed and start the paperwork clock
If you take one thing from this article: get assessed within the first few days whether or not you’re sore. An assessment that finds nothing is a good result and a documented baseline. An assessment that finds something has found it early, which is when it’s most straightforward to address.
A few practical notes for New Brunswick drivers:
You likely have coverage for this. Standard NB auto policies include accident benefits, often called Section B, that can cover treatment after a collision regardless of who was at fault. It’s not a lawsuit and it doesn’t require blaming anyone. We explain the basics on our Section B insurance page, and your adjuster can confirm the specifics of your policy.
Gaps in care get noticed. A long stretch between the collision and your first visit is a detail insurers pay attention to. Being seen early keeps the record clean.
You don’t need a referral to see us. You can call directly. Here’s what a first MVA rehab visit looks like so nothing catches you off guard.
If you’re a veteran, we work with DVA coverage for chiropractic care and see a lot of Fredericton-area veterans. Details are on our Veterans page. (Freddy Tow Co. is veteran-owned themselves, which we suspect is part of why they think about the person and not just the vehicle.)
What good looks like, in order
- Scene safe, photos taken, information exchanged
- Vehicle towed and documented
- Insurer called the same day, accident benefits raised
- Body assessed within a few days, even if you feel fine
- Everything kept: receipts, the police file number, appointment records, your own notes
Steps one and two are Freddy Tow Co.’s specialty, and their accident recovery service covers that part well. Steps four and five are ours.
Book an assessment
If you’ve been in a collision anywhere around Fredericton, Oromocto or New Maryland, whether this week or a few weeks ago, call us at (506) 472-7000 or request an appointment online. Dr. Scott Brayall is certified in both Chiropractic BioPhysics® and Functional Neurology, which is directly relevant to the neck and head injuries collisions tend to cause.
We’re at 1-30 Hughes St, Fredericton.
This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have severe or worsening symptoms after a collision, particularly loss of consciousness, severe headache, numbness or weakness, or changes to vision or speech, seek emergency medical care.