Spinal cord injury and back injury – personal injury compensation following a car accident or car crash

Spinal cord injury and back injury accidents are a life changing event and if the injury was sustained in a non fault accident you are rightfully entitled to claim personal injury compensation. When deciding to make a claim for personal injury compensation, it is vital that you chose an experienced solicitor to represent you to ensure all your care needs are met and the maximum amount of compensation is obtained for your future needs.

If you have suffered a spinal cord injury or back injury in a car accident or any another type of accident that was not your fault, we can help arrange care needs and make a compensation claim. Our personal injury solicitors are experts in dealing with spinal cord injury and back injury compensation and have helped thousands of people make a compensation claim. Our solicitors work on a no win, no fee basis and you are totally protected from all costs. If our costs associated with making your compensation claim are not recovered in full from the person at fault's insurance company, we will write them off. More about making a personal injury claim…

Compensation and rehabilitation
We understand how a spinal cord injury or back injury can dramatically alter a person's life. In some cases no amount of personal injury compensation can restore a person's life to how it was before the accident. In addition to securing the maximum amount of personal injury compensation, one of our primary objectives is to ensure that our clients obtain the very best treatment and rehabilitation to help them take the important steps towards regaining an independent life.

Depending upon the nature and extent of your spinal cord injury or back injury, our rehabilitation service could include: medical attention, pain relief, physical therapies (e.g. physiotherapy), surgery, retraining and counselling. We have access to the very best providers of rehabilitation services for people who have suffered a spinal cord injury, including assistive technology, physical aids, events and rehabilitation services.

For advice on our rehabilitation services and how we can help you make a compensation claim for your spinal cord injury or back call us now on 0808 143 43 42 or complete the free claim assessment opposite.

Spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury is often sustained by people who have been involved in a car accident, heavy fall or diving accident. It can also be caused by diseases such as polio, spina bifida and Friedreich's Ataxia.

The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss of functioning to occur. In fact, most people who suffer a spinal cord injury, the spinal cord remains intact, but the damage caused by the compression or bruising results in a loss of functioning. Spinal cord injuries are very different from back injuries such as ruptured disks, spinal stenosis or pinched nerves.

A person can actually break their back or neck and yet not sustain a spinal cord injury only if the bones around the spinal cord (the vertebrae) are damaged, but the spinal cord is not affected. In these situations, the individual may not experience paralysis once the bones are stabilised.

What are the spinal cord and the vertebrae?
The adult spinal cord is about 50 centimetres long and extends from the base of the brain to about the waist. It is the major bundle of nerves that carry nerve impulses between the brain and the rest of the body. Nerves within the spinal cord (upper motor neurons) carry messages back and forth from the brain to the spinal nerves along the spinal tract. Lower motor neurons branch out from the spinal cord to the other parts of the body, carrying sensations (from the skin and other body parts and organs to the brain) and instructions (to the various body parts to initiate actions such as muscle movement). Injury to the spinal cord causes loss of function of the nerves, limbs and organs below the site of the injury.

The spinal cord lies within vertebrae. These rings of bones are together called the spinal column or back bone. In general, the higher in the spinal column an injury occurs, the more dysfunction a person will experience. There are seven vertebrae in the neck-the Cervical Vertebrae-C1 (at the top) to C7. Injury in this region usually causes loss of function to the arms and legs (quadriplegia).

There are twelve Thoracic Vertebrae. The highest (T1) is where the top rib attaches. Injury to the thoracic region affects the chest and the legs.

Between the thoracic vertebrae and the pelvis lie the 5 Lumbar Vertebrae. The 5 Sacral Vertebrae run from the pelvis to the end of the spinal column. Injury to the lumbar and sacral vertebrae generally result in loss of functioning in the hips and legs.

Loss of function in the chest, hips and legs is Paraplegia.

What are the effects of spinal cord injury?
The effects of spinal cord injury depend on the type and level of the injury.

There are two types of spinal cord injury - complete and incomplete. A complete spinal cord injury is one that at the point of injury has totally cut the passage of signals between the brain and the body. There is no function below the level of the injury - no sensation and no voluntary movement. Both sides of the body are equally affected. A person with an incomplete injury may be able to move one limb more than another, be able to feel parts of the body that cannot be moved, or may have more functioning on one side of the body than the other. With the advances in acute treatment of spinal cord injury, incomplete injuries are becoming more common.

The level of injury is very helpful in predicting what parts of the body might be affected by paralysis and loss of function. Remember that in incomplete injuries there will be some variation in the prognosis.

A person with an spinal cord injury above C4 may require a ventilator to breathe. C5 injury often leaves the shoulders and biceps with control, but without control at the wrist or hand. C6 injury leaves control of the wrist, but not the hand. C7 and T1 injuries leave the ability to straighten the arms, but have only limited hand and finger dexterity.

Injuries below T1 result in paraplegia. At T1 to T8 there is most often control of the hands, but lack of abdominal muscle control leaves poor trunk control. Lower T injuries leave good control of the trunk and abdominal muscles. Injuries at the Lumbar and Sacral vertebra reduce control of the hip flexors and legs.

Besides a loss of sensation or motor functioning, a spinal cord injury also produces other changes. There can be bowel and bladder dysfunction. Sexual functioning is also frequently affected by spinal cord injury. Men may have their fertility affected, while women's fertility is generally not affected. Very high injuries (C1, C2) can result in a loss of many involuntary functions including the ability to breathe, necessitating breathing aids such as mechanical ventilators or diaphragmatic pacemakers. Other effects of spinal cord injury may include low blood pressure, inability to regulate blood pressure effectively, reduced control of body temperature, inability to sweat below the level of injury, and chronic pain.

Do people with a spinal cord injury ever recover?
At the time of injury, the spinal cord swells. When the swelling goes down, some functioning may return. Especially with incomplete injuries, functioning may return as late as 18 months after the injury. However, only a very small fraction of people with spinal cord injury recover all functioning.

Is there a cure for spinal cord injury?
Whilst most body parts and organs can repair themselves after they are injured the central nervous system cannot. Attempting to repair the damage caused by a brain or spinal cord injury is a puzzle that has not yet been solved.

Nevertheless the damage caused by a spinal cord injury can be reduced by limiting immediate cell death and reducing the inflammation of the injured cord.

Attempts to regenerate function in the damaged area are focusing on regrowing nerves, blocking the mechanism that stops neurons from regrowing themselves, inserting new cells and bypassing the damaged area.

How we can help following a spinal cord or back injury
If you (or someone you know) have suffered a spinal cord injury or back injury in a car accident or other type of accident in the UK that was not your fault, we can help you claim compensation for your injury and the pain and suffering it has caused. Our personal injury solicitors specialise in spinal cord injury and back injury and work on an ethical no-win, no-fee basis to help you claim compensation. See no win, no fee for more information…

For free advice on our rehabilitation services and how we can help you pursue a personal injury compensation claim for your spinal cord injury or back injury call us now on 0808 143 43 42 or complete the free claim assessment opposite.