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Posted in Spinal Cord Injuries on October 22, 2021
Spinal injuries can often result in devastating harm that can change a person’s life forever, impacting not only their ability to work and maintain friendships and relationships but even move. That is why if you suffered a spinal injury in an accident due to another person’s reckless, negligent, or intentional actions, you need to obtain legal help to pursue the compensation you deserve and justice for the harm you endured.
That is why in this blog post, we will dive deeper into this subject of spinal injuries and help you understand the specifics behind them. Specifically, we will go over how they occur, the most common types of spinal injuries, and how an experienced legal team can help you pursue the financial recovery you are entitled to after this trauma.
Although there are many different types of accidents that can result in a spinal injury, some accidents tend to cause this debilitating injury more often than others. These accidents include:
Spinal injuries are classified based on the location of where these injuries occur. More specifically, they are often broken up based on the following four sections of the spinal cord:
This section of the spinal cord is responsible for sending signals to the shoulders, back of the head, hands, neck, arms, and down to the diaphragm. Although, quadriplegia is one of the more severe outcomes of a cervical spinal cord injury, often impacting a person’s everyday activities. Not all of these cervical spine injuries are that severe. Depending on the incident, whiplash can also be a frequent result of a cervical spine injury, which occurs when there is damage to the spine and the surrounding soft tissue in the neck that results from head-on or a read-end crash. Fortunately, most victims suffering whiplash will recover over time.
The thoracic section of the spinal cord transmits signals to the back muscles and certain parts of the abdomen. However, because the rib cage protects the area of the body that is controlled by the thoracic section, thoracic spinal cord injuries occur less frequently than the other types of spinal cord injuries. Yet, when they do happen, most patients will need to use a brace on their trunks to remain stable and help their core muscles recover.
Lumbar spinal cord injuries tend to lead to paraplegia or the paralysis of the legs. This is because the lumbar portion of the spinal cord carries signals to the lower back, the abdomen, buttocks, and external genital organs. Consequently, injuries in this section may disrupt the bowel and bladder functions and even result in a loss of sensation. As a result, this type of injury may require surgery and or other types of external treatments.
In general, a sacral spinal cord injury has been known to paralyze the lower extremities such as the genital organs, hips, legs, and thighs. This section of the spinal cord is responsible for sending signals to the body’s lower extremities, and injuries here will often lead to the loss of bowel or bladder movements and may even cause sexual dysfunction.
Another important thing you will want to understand when it comes to spinal injuries is whether these injuries are complete or incomplete. Typically, an incomplete injury means that the ability of the spinal cord to convey messages to or from the brain is not entirely lost, and some sensation and movement are still possible below the level of injury.
On the other hand, a complete injury is indicated by a total lack of sensory and motor function below the injury site. Yet, this does not mean that there are no remaining intact nerves or axons crossing the injury site left. Rather, it just indicates that they are not functioning appropriately because of the trauma.
If you have been harmed in a spinal injury accident because of another person’s wrongful actions, you deserve experienced legal help on your side fighting for the justice and damages you deserve. Thankfully, with a skilled and knowledgeable spinal injury accident attorney, you can get this legal help plus so much more. Once retained, these lawyers can:
For these reasons, if your life has been disrupted because of a spinal injury accident, do not wait any longer to get the legal help you need. Instead, reach out to the Law Office of John W. Redmann, LLC today or call us at 504-500-5000 for a free case consultation and let our legal team show you how we can fight for the compensation you are entitled to.