Chicago Car Accidents and Spinal Cord Injury

 Posted on December 00,0000 in Car Accidents

A spinal cord injury is one of the most traumatizing injuries that a person can sustain. Depending on the severity of the injury, a person can be paralyzed or suffer damage to the brain or nervous system after surviving such trauma. The most common cause of spinal cord injuries, according to the Mayo Clinic, are motor vehicle accidents. Car accidents account for more than 40 percent of this type of injury every year. Other leading causes include falls, acts of violence, sports injuries, and disease.

The reason that a spinal cord injury is so traumatizing is because the nerves or tracts in the spinal cord “carry signals from the brain to control muscle movement,” states the Mayo Clinic. Injury occurs when a sudden blow or impact to the spine jostles one or more vertebrae in the spinal cord. While the initial impact does the greatest amount of damage in a spinal cord injury, “additional damage usually occurs over days or weeks because of bleeding, swelling, inflammation, and fluid accumulation in and around your spinal cord,” reports the Mayo Clinic.

While a spinal cord injury is traumatizing, it does not mean that you cannot live a fulfilling and active life. Many people, as noted by the Canadian website HealthLinkBC, are able to drive, play sports, and work even after a spinal cord injury. It may, however, require a significant amount of physical therapy and medical attention before a person with a spinal cord injury is able to be comparably active to how he or she was before the incident, if he or she is lucky enough to ever recover. Many patients may also require counseling or therapy to deal with the emotional aspects of losing abilities associated with a healthy spinal cord.

Because the injury is so traumatic and may require not only physical but emotional therapy, the costs associated with a spinal cord injury are high. Reported in the US National Library of Medicine’s The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, direct medical costs for patients with a spinal cord injury in 2005 averaged more than $21,000 annually per patient. Patients with a complete spinal cord injury can expect to pay more than $28,000 annually in medical care; the cost for patients with a thoracic incomplete spinal cord injury is closer to $17,000 annually.

The high cost is just one reason that if you sustain a spinal cord injury after a car accident in the Chicago area, your most important step is to seek the counsel of an accident attorney. Contact an experienced Chicago spinal cord injury attorney today at Salvi & Maher, LLP