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What To Know About Spinal Injuries

by Richard J. Banta | Feb 3, 2022 | Uncategorized

What to know about spinal injury in a personal injury law case

No matter what causes your spinal injury, even if it’s a car accident, a fall or some other cause, these are devastating types of accidents and impact the lives of spinal injury victims and families for a lifetime. Depending on the severity of your injury, you might have a lifetime of medical costs, and that can be scary. If you or a family member have received a spinal injury in a personal injury accident, you should reach out to personal injury lawyers.

What is a spinal injury?

A spinal cord injury is a damage to the spinal cord, which is the bundle of nerves found along the back. This bundle of bones and nerves carries messages between the brain and the rest of your body. If you have an accident that results in full or partial loss of motor control, then you most likely have a spinal cord injury. In fact, spinal cord injuries can leave you paralyzed in the lower part of the body or in all four limbs. The spinal cord is also responsible for a range of functions, such as breathing, body temperature, bladder, and sexual function, so when you are paralyzed in any way, you have lifelong health problems of various types.

Common causes of spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury is often the result of an injury or blue to the spine, and according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, common causes of spinal cord injuries they see the most often are:

  • Motor vehicle accidents are responsible for nearly 42% of spinal cord injuries.
  • When people fall, over 26% of them find themselves with a spinal cord injury after their fall.
  • Acts of violence, it is most commonly seen in gunshot wounds. 15% of the people experiencing a gunshot wound receive a spinal cord injury.
  • And people who play sports, whether professionally or recreationally, have the chance to be paralyzed or have another type of spinal cord injury of up to 8% of the population.

Spinal cord injuries can be caused by negligence, and if you are reaching a personal injury lawyer, you are most likely a victim of negligence. This could look like your injury happening when a car hit your motorcycle, and you are following laws, but the other driver was not. The driver would then be deemed to be irresponsible and deemed negligent. It can also happen if you fell on a broken staircase, and if you are not the owner of the building, then the owner of the building should’ve had the staircase fixed, especially if it was something they could have reasonably known about. In this case, the owner would be considered negligent.