Spinal cord injuries due to car accidents can easily change lives

Many events can take place that have life-changing outcomes. In many cases, those events are positive ones, such as marriage or having a child. Unfortunately, in other instances, you could find yourself involved in a serious car accident that causes you to suffer injuries that change your life in numerous and difficult ways.

One major injury that a car crash could cause is a spinal cord injury. This type of harm can result in many negative effects, and the exact outcomes you could face will likely depend on where on the spine the injury occurred and the severity of the injury itself. Regrettably, even if medical professionals consider a spinal cord injury relatively minor, it can still have life-changing impacts.

Injury severity

When discussing the severity of a spinal cord injury, two terms generally reflect the level of seriousness, which may also be referred to as completeness. The following information describes the two levels of severity:

• The more serious category is a complete spinal cord injury. This description means that you have lost all feeling and motor function below the point of injury. As a result, you will likely experience some form of paralysis.
• The second category is an incomplete spinal cord injury. While this type of injury can still have serious outcomes, you may retain at least some ability to feel sensations and move your body below the point of injury. However, the degree to which you can feel or move can vary significantly.

As mentioned, paralysis could result from a spinal cord injury. Depending on your injury site, you could partially or completely lose the ability to move your limbs, trunk of the body or control certain organs, such as your bladder.

Impacts on daily life

If you suffer some of the more severe outcomes of a spinal cord injury, your life and abilities will change significantly. However, even if the results land on the less-severe end of the spectrum, you could still see major life changes that affect your ability to carry out certain tasks that you may have done before your injury. As a result, you could lose your job, lose your ability to participate in once-loved activities and have to contend with constant pain.

You may even face financial challenges due to the medical treatments necessary to attend to your injury and your potential loss of income. If you would like to seek compensation for these and other resulting damages, you may wish to consider filing a personal injury claim against the driver considered responsible for the accident that led to your injuries.