Every year, hundreds of thousands of people suffer spinal injuries. Many of these victims sustain spinal injuries serious enough to cause paralysis and other health challenges. For many of these victims, the best personal injury attorney in New York can offer them the best shot at filing a successful personal injury claim against the at-fault parties.
Getting legal redress in a case involving a spinal injury isn’t something every lawyer can handle. That’s why victims must seek out only attorneys with relevant experience in handling such cases.
What Constitutes a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)?
The spinal cord is that part of the human anatomy that’s responsible for sending messages between the brain and all other body tissues. These messages are sent in the form of electrical signals that are manifested in the form of sensations like touch, pressure, and pain.
A spinal cord injury (SCI) is any trauma to the spinal cord and any nearby structures like ligaments and vertebrae.
Such injuries can severely hamper an individual’s ability to perform certain body movements and functions. In addition to things like a reduced range of motion and paralysis, a spinal cord injury can also affect the nerve fibers that control specific bodily functions like urination. This can result in incontinence.
Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries
Spinal cord injuries can be caused by several factors. These include:
i)Motor vehicle accidents: Car accidents make up a significant number of spinal cord injuries. Some of the most severe cases of SCIs are also attributable to car accidents.
- ii) Assaults: Violent acts are also responsible for many spinal cord injuries. These include gunshots, stabbings, or injuries due to improvised weapons.
iii) Recreational sports: Certain activities like car racing and diving into shallow water also contribute toward spinal injury cases.
- iv) Falls: Many cases of spinal cord injuries are due to individuals slipping and falling on hard surfaces.
- v) Medical malpractice: While rare, spinal cord injuries can also result due to medical errors during surgical procedures.
Why You Need a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer
As a victim that’s suffered a spinal cord injury, you’ll need competent legal representation when pursuing a personal injury claim. Hiring the services of an experienced spinal cord injury lawyer helps you get justice.
Hiring a spinal cord injury lawyer comes with the following advantages.
1)Experience
SCI cases may not always be as straightforward as other types of personal injury cases. Gathering the necessary evidence to build a strong case can be challenging. This is especially true if the spinal cord injury is due to indirect causes like a medical error. In such instances, proving the cause may require your lawyer to bring in expert witnesses like surgeons to testify. Even for spinal cord injury cases involving accidents like a slip and fall, your lawyer will need to be familiar with the laws that support such a claim. A good example is when an SCI is sustained due to a fall on a sidewalk. Depending on the jurisdiction, the owner of the adjacent building can be held liable for such an injury due to failure to properly maintain the sidewalk.
Only an experienced lawyer can know how to handle a specific spinal cord injury according to its merits.
2) Helping You Get Financial Assistance
Suffering a spinal cord injury can be very devastating. In addition to the misery caused, you’ll have significant medical bills to take care of. Spinal cord injuries usually require rehabilitation and specialized care. Many such therapies are expensive, putting a strain on your financial resources. A spinal cord injury lawyer can help in such a situation by helping you get damages, thereby offsetting the costs associated with such care. For example, if you sustained the SCI in a car accident, your lawyer can negotiate a settlement with the at-fault party’s insurance company. Of course, the insurance company may be unwilling to agree to this. However, an experienced lawyer can persuade them otherwise by being willing to take the case to court.
3) Helping You Get Closure
The suffering caused by a spinal cord injury goes beyond physical pain. It also involves psychological torment. This is especially the case when the SCI causes significant paralysis that leads to a loss of consortium and other disabilities. Knowing that your life will never be the same again is quite devastating. By bringing those responsible for your injuries to justice, you’ll get a measure of closure. An experienced spinal cord injury lawyer is the right person to help make that happen.
All in all, you should contact a spinal cord injury lawyer soon after suffering such an accident. This gives you a much better chance at justice.
