Burlington Spinal Cord Injury Attorney

The Mayo Clinic names a few groups of people who are more likely to suffer spinal cord damage than others. They include: males, people between 16-30 years old, people over 65 years old, and people engaged in extreme sports or risky behaviors – driving is considered one of them.

Here are ways in which spinal injuries most often happen, and who might be to blame:

• Vehicle collisions: Whether you’re in a car, bicycling, or walking, colliding with a motor vehicle unexpectedly at the wrong speed or angle can easily damage your spine. Higher speeds tend to lead to worse injuries, and alcohol is said to be a factor in 1 out of every 4 spinal injuries. Needless to say, if you were hit by a drunk driver, he or she is liable for your medical costs.
• Falls: Falls are a bigger risk for older adults, but a fall from heights or fall onto a hard, angled surface can injure anyone. Employees, such as construction workers, are especially at risk of severe injury to the spinal cord in a workplace incident. Fall are also a danger in healthcare situations. Patients checked into a hospital are usually weak and disoriented. If left unattended, they can experience falls and traumatic injuries. Hospitals and nursing homes must be vigilant to prevent these falls. When they aren’t, they may be held liable in a lawsuit.
• Sports injuries: Being tackled by another player, diving into shallow water, or suffering a wipeout on an ATV, snowboard, or water ski can be enough to change your life permanently. Liability would rest on the party that either caused the injury directly, or allowed a dangerous condition that contributed to the injury. For example, if a pool owner didn’t post signs saying “No Diving” or depth measurements, or didn’t provide supervision to minors using the pool, that owner would most likely be liable in a personal injury claim.
• Dog bites: If the victim is small enough or the dog is large enough, spinal trauma is a serious danger in a bite incident. Children are the most likely to suffer spinal injury in any animal attack. As always, it is the dog owner’s responsibility to control the dog, and special care needs to be taken around children, who don’t know how dangerous animals can be. When a child is attacked, the dog’s owner or the person with control of the dog at the time is almost certainly liable.