Brooklyn Spinal Cord Injury Lawyers
Personal Injury Lawyers in Brooklyn Protecting the Rights of Spinal Cord Injury Victims
Spinal cord injuries threaten to turn a person’s life upside down. After a devastating accident, many people start noticing intense pain in their backs or feel weakness or numbness in their limbs. These are all signs of a potentially life-altering spinal cord injury.
Do not delay seeing a doctor after an accident. Any back injury can require immediate treatment to prevent problems from worsening, so the sooner you seek treatment, the better.
Why Spinal Cord Injuries Are So Serious
The spinal cord is like a superhighway that carries signals from the brain to other parts of the body and back again. When this highway is disrupted, signals never reach their destination or do in garbled form. As a result, patients struggle with balance, movement, and coordination. They can also lose all feeling.
Not all spinal cord injuries are the same. One that completely cuts the cord in 2 will lead to paralysis below the site of injury. But only part of the spinal cord could be stretched, bruised, or torn. Problems can manifest in different parts of the body when the spinal cord is partially damaged. For example, a bruise on the left-hand side of the spinal cord might cause a loss of sensation in only one side of the body.
Depending on the injury, some patients can regain partial use of affected limbs. Others can learn new ways of performing common tasks even if they are permanently impaired. But all of this rehabilitation is costly and time-consuming, putting stress on a family’s finances and their emotions.
The High Cost of Care
After a car accident or slip and fall, a victim might need her spinal column strengthened to prevent further damage. Many patients require multiple surgeries, sometimes even a transplant of someone else’s spinal column.
The immediate medical expenses are eye-opening. According to figures collected by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, someone with an injury high up on their spinal column will incur, on average, $1,064,716 in their first year.
There are also continuing costs for many patients who might need future surgeries or ongoing rehabilitation. Someone with an injury high on their spinal column will also incur, on average, about $184,891 each subsequent year in medical costs. The lifetime costs for someone injured younger in life can be several millions of dollars.
These costs do not include the lost income that many spinal cord victims lose out on as they are unable to continue with their careers. Someone who does manual labor, for example, might be unable to work any job after their injury.
Changes to the Marital Relationship
Unlike other injuries, spinal cord injuries can dramatically alter a person’s marriage. Couples who are going through a spinal cord injury, especially one that is permanent, can experience a loss of companionship and sexual intimacy. The spouse who is not injured has nevertheless seen a permanent change in his or her lifestyle. This type of loss of consortium claim can often be brought in spinal injury cases.
Contact a Brooklyn Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer Today to Schedule a Free Case Evaluation
Lipsig, Shapey, Manus & Moverman is one of the oldest personal injury law firms in the city. Let us use our knowledge to help you and your family get the compensation you need. Call 212-285-3300 to schedule a free consultation, or reach out to us by sending in this contact form.
