What Should You Know About Spinal Cord Injuries?

If your spinal cord is injured – in a traffic crash or any other scenario – because another party was negligent, what are your rights? Can you be compensated for your damages? Usually, the answer is yes, but you must be assisted by a Halifax spinal cord injury lawyer.

Any blow to the vertebrae may cause a severe, long-term spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injuries may happen without warning in car and truck accidents, construction accidents, collisions playing sports, falls, and other accidents that can dislocate or fracture vertebrae.

An injury to the spinal cord is one of the most dangerous injuries that anyone can sustain. Inflammation and swelling can exacerbate the damage. Treatment for these injuries may include prescriptions, surgeries, and rehabilitation – in some cases, for the rest of your life.

 

How Will a Spinal Cord Injury Impact Your Life?

A spinal cord injury changes your life. It affects your daily routine, emotional and physical health, and quality of life. After an injury to the spinal cord, you will need comprehensive support and care.

If you have feeling and mobility below the location of the injury, a full recovery is likely. If there is no feeling or mobility whatsoever below the location of the injury, the injury could result in permanent disability.

If your spinal cord was injured by negligence in a traffic accident – or in any accident that was not your fault – you’re entitled by law to recover compensation for your lost wages, your current and future medical expenses, and your other accident-and-injury-related damages and losses.

 

How Do Spinal Cord Injuries Affect Victims?

A sudden blow to the spine may cause a spinal cord injury that crushes, compresses, or fractures one or more vertebrae. Spinal cord injuries may cause a reduction or loss of sensation, mobility, and body functions below the location of the injury.

A catastrophic and disabling spinal cord injury may be caused by the shearing of a nerve or by spinal cord compression or nerve root compression. However, in many cases, spinal cord injuries are not detected immediately.

When a spinal cord injury isn’t immediately detected, a serious medical condition may emerge days or weeks later caused by inflammation, bleeding, swelling, or fluid accumulating around the cord. That’s why you should arrange a thorough medical exam immediately after a traffic accident or any other serious accident, even if you feel perfectly healthy.

 

Why is a Medical Exam So Important After an Accident?

If you have sustained a hard-to-detect or latent spinal cord injury, you will need medical documentation if you subsequently bring a personal injury claim with the assistance of a Nova Scotia spinal cord injury lawyer.

Cervical radiculopathy is nerve damage that happens when the nerve roots adjacent to the cervical vertebrae are compressed. Injuries to these nerve roots may cause severe pain along the nerve path to an arm or a hand.

A serious spinal cord injury may also cause quadriplegia or paraplegia, but even a less severe spinal injury can make it difficult to perform simple tasks and cost thousands for non-MSI covered medical care and rehabilitation treatment.

 

How Costly Are Spinal Cord Injuries?

A spinal cord injury can lead to a lifetime of expenses for non-MSI covered treatment, therapies and medicine. The cost of a spinal cord injury to an individual includes not only medical costs but also lost wages, cost of personal care and housekeeping costs.

If you work, a spinal cord injury means lost income, so your debts may begin piling up. Add the cost of care to your debt and you may become overwhelmed very quickly.

 

When Should You Reach Out to a Personal Injury Lawyer?

 

If you sustain a spinal cord injury in Nova Scotia because another party was negligent, to recover the full compensation that you are entitled to, you should seek advice and representation from an experienced Halifax spinal cord injury lawyer.

Contact that lawyer immediately after a medical provider has examined and treated you. The deadline (or statute of limitations) for bringing a personal injury lawsuit after a spinal cord injury – with only rare exceptions –  is two years from the accident date.

You can’t wait two years. Evidence can deteriorate or even be lost over time, and the memories of witnesses fade. Taking your case immediately to a Nova Scotia spinal cord injury lawyer puts you in the best possible position to prevail with your personal injury claim.

Personal injury lawyers in Nova Scotia represent clients on a contingent fee basis. If you’ve been injured, your first legal consultation is free. If you take legal action, you will owe no fee to a lawyer until your compensation is recovered after a trial or following an out-of-court settlement.

 

Who Can You Trust With Your Injury Claim?

 

As someone with a spinal cord injury you will need every dollar of compensation that’s available, and you cannot recover that compensation alone. The personal injury lawyers at McKiggan Hebert will stand by your side and bring your case to its best possible conclusion.

For over thirty years the lawyers at McKiggan Hebert Lawyers have fought for the injured victims of negligence in Halifax and throughout Nova Scotia. We have been named among Canada’s Top Ten Personal Injury Law Firms by Canadian Lawyer Magazine.

The team at McKiggan Hebert Lawyers knows how to resolve the most difficult and complicated personal injury cases. Put your case in our hands. Contact our legal team now if you have sustained a spinal cord injury that was not your fault.

Find out more about your rights as an injured victim of negligence – or initiate the legal process immediately – by contacting McKiggan Hebert Lawyers at 902-706-2298. If a negligent party injured you, and if we can prove it, you’ll be compensated, and the law will be on your side.