Your spinal cord is the wire that connects your brain with the rest of your body. It sends electrical signals from your brain to various parts of your body and receives messages from those parts back to your brain. Spinal cord injuries can disrupt this process, leading to pain, paralysis, and other problems. A car accident is one way this can happen.
Broken or crushed vertebrae can cause spinal cord injuries. A person thrown from a car, hit by a collapsing bridge, or who fell off a ladder, for example, might have a spinal cord injury. If your spinal cord is damaged in an auto accident, severe damage can occur before you are thrown out of the car. Some of the most severe injuries occur in drivers inside their vehicles.
For several reasons, car accidents can result in spinal cord injuries. These may happen when the driver loses control of the vehicle, at extremely high speeds, or due to airbag deployment. There are many different ways that an accident like this can occur — but everyone has the potential to cause permanent damage to your spine.
To understand how these car accidents affect spinal cord injuries, you need to know how our bodies function and what happens explicitly during an accident like this. The spinal cord is a collection of nerves that carry messages between the brain and the rest of the body. It is protected by vertebrae, which are what make up our spine.
There are two main ways that a car accident can affect your spinal cord: compression and shearing. Compression occurs when your spine is forcefully moved to collide with surrounding bones. Shearing happens when the excessive force on your vertebrae results in slippage and damage to the tissues in between them.
In a car accident, the most common type of shearing would be a whiplash injury. This is when you are thrown forward, causing your neck and head to be thrust violently forward. This can cause extreme damage to the spinal cord if there isn’t enough padding in your seat and your seatbelt is not tight enough.
Compression injuries can also affect your spinal cord. If you are struck by another car at high speed and have been wearing a seatbelt, you may suffer from severe compression injuries. As well as colliding with the vehicle, this type of injury can occur if you are hit by something else in an accident. For example, if your car is hit by a truck, you may suffer from sudden acceleration injuries. This is when your vehicle suddenly picks up speed, and you crash into something else.
The final cause of spinal cord injury in a car accident comes from airbags. Airbags are designed to protect occupants during high-speed accidents. If the airbag deploys, it can be forceful enough to strike your spinal cord.
There are also other causes of spinal cord injury from car accidents. Any accident that causes you to lose control of the vehicle, such as drifting or skidding, could result in spinal cord damage. Similarly, if you have an accident and mistake the accelerator for the brake and lose control of your vehicle, a similar effect may occur. This is because once you are driving at high speed, if you mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brakes, you would slam into another car or object.
To prevent spinal cord injuries from car crashes, it is essential that all vehicle occupants – including the driver – buckle their seat belts and take other steps to protect their safety. Wearing a helmet while riding motorcycles can also help prevent severe head and neck injuries.
In addition, motorists and passengers should not sit in the front seat unless they wear seat belts. Also, children should never sit in the front seat of a car or truck.
If your car is hit from behind, if you are in an accident that involves another vehicle or a truck, or if you roll over, you should call 911 immediately. Your accident may have resulted in spinal cord injury, and you need immediate medical attention. In addition, contact your insurance company or the insurance company of the other driver to let them know about the accident. Remember to file an accident report with your local police department.
According to federal safety officials, “The Department of Transportation has noted consistently that seatbelt use is an effective measure in preventing deaths and serious injuries in vehicle crashes.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) states, “research shows that more than half of all passenger fatalities could be prevented if everyone buckled up.
More than 1.3 million people suffer spinal cord injuries yearly in car accidents. The average cost of spinal cord injury treatment is $470,000. Approximately 10,000 patients annually in the U.S. are left paralyzed due to their injuries. The average recovery time after a spinal cord injury is about 16 months. An individual may need several surgeries and intensive physical therapy to regain full use of their extremities and limbs after the accident.
Once a spinal cord injury is diagnosed, the prognosis depends on the severity of the injury, the medical issues associated with it, and what treatment options are available. However, individuals with spinal cord injuries can expect an average life expectancy. Most individuals who have sustained a spinal cord injury eventually return to work and participate in their community. Contact car accident attorney – Jesse Minc to learn more.