Orange County Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer

The spinal cord is a complicated bundle of nerves that sends signals from the brain to the extremities, and an injury to the spinal cord can cause serious, permanent damage including restricted motion, loss of feeling, and in some cases, partial or even complete paralysis. If you suspect that someone has suffered from a spinal cord injury, you should not make any attempt to move them, as this will likely cause much more damage. Spinal cord injuries happen because of things like car accidents, falls, assaults, and other impacts, but they can also happen from surgical errors and even loss of oxygen.

If you or someone that you love has suffered from a spinal cord injury as a result of someone else’s negligence, malice, or malpractice, contact us immediately to get the help that you need to build a strong legal case. The team at Timothy J. Ryan are experienced with a variety of personal injuries, and we will be happy to help you through this difficult and stressful time.

Contact us now for an initial consultation, where you can get advice, ask questions, and learn more about our process. This is a great opportunity to understand how we can help you in your situation, and learn about how we have helped past clients with similar injuries. Read more about spinal cord injuries below, and contact us now.

More About Spinal Cord Injuries

The spinal cord is an extremely sensitive bundle of nerves that run through the center of the vertebrae in your spine. The vertebrae work together to give you the degree of mobility that you have in your midsection, but also act as protection for this extremely important cord. If the cord is severed, crushed, or bruised, the nerves lose their ability to send signals from the brain to the parts of the body that they are connected to. This can cause issues like numbness, loss of motor function, and paralysis.

If you suspect that someone has suffered from a spinal cord injury, you should not attempt to move them at all. Call 911 and let them know what happened and that you suspect there is a spinal cord injury so that they can pass this information on to the first responders.

Calculating Damages For Spinal Cord Injuries

Spinal cord injuries are commonly suffered because of impacts to the spine. While they are more common with high impacts, there are many different circumstances where a minor blow can cause serious, permanent damage that will impact the victim’s life forever. No matter how the injury happened, it is important that the victim gets the proper compensation. We understand that financial awards will never compensate for the loss of mobility and freedom that these injuries come with, but there is no reason that a victim must additionally suffer financially.

In order to calculate the amount owed to a victim, we divide the damages into two different sections:

Economic Damages

Economic damages are intended to repay a victim (and their insurance company) for actual losses and expenses that were incurred as a result of the injuries. This includes all medical expenses, such as hospital stays, surgeries, physical therapy, assistive devices, prescriptions, and anything else directly relating to the medical treatment of the spinal injury. In most cases, these damages will be repaid to the victim’s insurance company, who has first priority to awards in personal injury cases.

In addition to medical expenses, these damages will also calculate income-based losses, including short-term disability and long-term impacts on the victim’s earning capacity. In cases involving spinal cord injuries and paralysis, it is very likely that the victim will be unable to return to work, either at all or in a severely limited capacity, and must be compensated for this change in income.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are calculated as a way to compensate the victim for the “intangible” aspects of an injury, including things like the actual pain they must endure, the suffering they will go through, the mental and emotional anguish that their injuries cause, and more. Since there are no dollar values attached to something like depression and sadness, an experienced personal injury attorney in Orange County will instead determine a multiplier—a number that clearly illustrates the severity of these impacts—and apply that to the economic damages in order to determine an amount that the victim deserves.

Contact Us Today

The sooner you call Orange County catastrophic injury attorney Timothy J. Ryan, the sooner you will be able to stop worrying about the legal aspects of this serious and traumatic injury, and focus entirely on recovery. We will do all that we can in order to alleviate the stress of the legal issues that come with the injury so that you can focus entirely on your physical and emotional health.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Orange County Catastrophic Injury Lawyer – Spinal Cord Injuries

A complete spinal cord injury means there is a total loss of sensory and motor function below the level of the injury. An incomplete injury means the person retains some degree of function or sensation below the injury site. The type of injury significantly impacts the prognosis and the required level of lifelong care.

The leading causes of spinal cord injuries are motor vehicle accidents (cars, trucks, and especially motorcycles), serious falls, acts of violence (such as gunshot wounds), and sports-related accidents. Medical malpractice during surgery can also lead to devastating spinal cord damage.

A life care plan is a comprehensive document prepared by medical and financial experts that details an SCI victim’s medical and personal needs for the rest of their life. It calculates the cost of everything from future surgeries and medications to wheelchairs, home modifications, and in-home care. This plan is the foundation for proving the full financial value of the claim.

Compensation in SCI cases is extensive, covering all future medical care outlined in a life care plan, lost income and total loss of future earning capacity, costs for home and vehicle modifications, and significant non-economic damages for pain, suffering, emotional trauma, and the profound loss of quality of life.

Paraplegia is paralysis that affects all or part of the trunk, legs, and pelvic organs, typically resulting from an injury to the thoracic or lumbar regions of the spinal cord. Quadriplegia (or tetraplegia) is paralysis of all four limbs and the torso, caused by an injury to the cervical (neck) region of the spinal cord.

In California, you generally have two years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit for a spinal cord injury. However, the circumstances of each case can affect this deadline, so it is critical to consult with an attorney as soon as possible to ensure your legal rights are preserved.

Due to the permanent nature of the disability and the need for lifelong medical care, spinal cord injury cases are among the highest-value personal injury claims. The total value is unique to each case but frequently runs into the millions or tens of millions of dollars, depending on the victim’s age, the severity of the paralysis, and the cost of future care.

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