A degloving injury is a severe trauma where the skin and soft tissue are completely stripped away from the underlying muscle, bone, or other structures, similar to how a glove is peeled off a hand. These catastrophic injuries typically occur in high-impact accidents involving machinery, motor vehicles, or situations where body parts get caught and forcibly pulled, causing the skin to literally separate from the body in large sections. Common locations include hands, fingers, arms, legs, and the scalp, and these injuries often require immediate emergency surgery and multiple reconstructive procedures.
Degloving injuries are among the most serious types of trauma because they destroy large areas of skin, blood vessels, and nerves all at once, often leading to permanent disability, scarring, and loss of function. Treatment typically involves emergency surgery to reattach tissue when possible, skin grafts, lengthy hospital stays, and extensive rehabilitation that can last months or years. In personal injury cases, degloving injuries result in very high damage awards because of the enormous medical costs, permanent disfigurement, ongoing pain, and the devastating impact on the victim's ability to work and perform daily activities.
