What does the future hold after a spinal cord injury? Will your loved one ever function normally again or live independently? If not, how will family pay for round-the-clock medical care needed for a safe, healthy, and quality life? These are just some questions our clients with spine-injured family have asked our Michigan spinal cord injury lawyers. And for each, we have successfully helped.
A spinal cord injury is damage to any part of the spinal cord or nerves at the end of the spinal canal. Spinal cord injuries occur from a blow, jab, or cut to the spine. Spinal cord injuries are often severe, causing permanent loss of strength, sensation, or function at and below the injury.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 30 percent of injury deaths in the United States are from injuries to the brain or spinal cord. Survivors of spinal cord injury face significant impairments such as paralysis, loss of motor skills, severe pain, loss of feeling or sensation, or other problems.
Leading causes of spinal cord injuries include:
A person who suffers a spinal cord injury needs immediate medical attention. For safety, after a traffic crash or other serious accident, assume the injured person has a spinal cord injury until a proper medical evaluation rules out such injury. Any injury to the spine can be significant or devastating for the sufferer or family.
Although they are often associated with car crashes and other violent trauma wounds, medical negligence also causes a significant number of spinal injuries. In many cases, the medical bills in the first year alone exceed $1 million in these cases. Professional negligence, including misdiagnosis, is often responsible for spinal and other serious injuries that occur in this context. Some specific causes of spinal injuries include:
A mistake or in this area could cause full or partial permanent paralysis. The failure to diagnose and treat a bacterial infection, tumor or other complication could have similar results.
How do you know if a person suffered a spinal cord injury? Certain symptoms should prompt medical evaluation, and even contact an experienced spinal cord injury attorney in Michigan for resources and help. Symptoms of spinal cord injury include:
Because a spinal cord injury can occur in many situations, identifying responsible parties will depend on what happened. Here are a few examples of spinal cord injury caused by carelessness or misconduct of another (negligence):
Claims involving spinal cord injuries require the utmost in attorney skill and experience. At the Buchanan Firm, Our injury lawyers in Grand Rapids have a well-earned reputation for successfully handling serious and demanding personal injury cases, including spinal cord injury cases. We teach this law to future attorneys in law school. But that’s just half of the equation.
Spinal cord injury cases require medical expertise, too. They demand the guidance, from beginning to end, of skilled and experienced medical personnel. One secret to our success is a full-time, master-degreed nurse on our professional staff. If you call our office, our nurse is here and ready to talk to you about the claim, and the evaluation is free!
If you or a loved one have suffered a serious spinal cord injury in Michigan, call the Buchanan Firm today. If we take your spinal cord injury claim, Helen will continue to oversee the medicine in your loved one’s case through settlement or trial.