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Emotional distress and animal bites

For many people, animals like dogs make them nervous. Many Kentucky residents have had scary encounters with dogs and other animals where they were growled at, jumped on or even bitten. Sometimes these events bring both physical injury and emotional trauma.

There are many different ways a person can suffer emotional trauma because of a dog bite. First, they can experience anxiety. They can relive the dog biting incident in their head and that can cause extreme anxiety. Anxiety is hard to treat and a person may never be able to fully recover.

Nightmares can also occur for victims. A person can suffer vivid and horrible dreams that result in loss of sleep, depression, anxiety and heart problems.

A dog bite victim also often suffers from a fear of dogs as a result. Dogs are everywhere, so this fear can be hard to work through. Seeing a dog can make a person uncomfortable, stressed and anxious. A dog bite can also lead to someone not being able to leave their house because of the fear of running into a dog.

The trauma of a dog bite may also lead a person to exhibit post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. In children, the trauma of a dog bite can lead to mental anguish that lasts well into adulthood. Children also often suffer from PTSD.

An animal bite is often a traumatic experience for victims. No one expects a cute and fuzzy animal will attack them. Dog bite victims do not only cause physical injuries, but the emotional trauma of being the victim of an animal bite is often serious and long-lasting. Victims of animal bites may want to hold the owner of the animal responsible for the attack by seeking compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering, emotional trauma and other damages.

Source: ireport.cnn.com, “Emotional damages from dog bites,” March 14, 2015

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