A spinal cord injury can change your life in an instant. What may begin as a back injury or neck pain can quickly turn into a serious medical condition with long-term effects on your mobility, independence, and ability to work. These injuries often result from sudden trauma, but in some cases, they become more complex over time through complications or medical treatment. Understanding how spinal cord injuries develop and why they sometimes worsen is an important step if you are trying to protect your health and your legal rights after an accident.
How Spinal Cord Injuries Get Worse Over Time
A spinal cord injury does not always reach its full severity right away. In the days or weeks after an accident, swelling, reduced blood flow, or nerve damage can cause symptoms to progress. Loss of sensation or movement can also interfere with healing, making recovery more difficult.
Complications may develop after the initial trauma, including infections, blood clots, pressure sores, or respiratory problems. In some cases, new medical conditions can arise from the injury itself or from the treatment required to manage it. Because spinal cord injuries can become more complex over time, early diagnosis and careful monitoring are critical to protecting your long-term health.
Recovery Outlook and Factors That Affect Healing For Spinal Cord Injuries
The prospects of recovery after a spinal cord injury can vary significantly. Some paralyses are life-long, while others gradually improve in function after a matter of months or years.
Unfortunately, many factors can impact the injury outcome. These factors include the nature and severity of the injury, the inherent risks of treatment, the risk that treatment may be performed incompetently, any intervening accidents, and decisions you make as a patient. The consequences are often difficult to project.
Common Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries
Spinal cord injuries often result from sudden trauma that damages the spine and interrupts communication between the brain and body. Understanding how your injury happened can help determine whether someone else may be responsible.
Common causes include:
Motor vehicle collisions involving cars trucks motorcycles and pedestrians which remain a leading cause of spinal cord injuries in Alberta
- Slip and fall accidents especially from heights or unsafe surfaces
- Sports and recreational incidents involving high impact collisions or falls
- Workplace accidents caused by falls equipment or unsafe job sites
- Medical errors or surgical complications that damage the spine
Knowing the cause of your injury is important when considering a personal injury claim. It can shape what evidence is needed and who may be legally responsible.
When Someone Else’s Negligence Causes Your Spinal Cord Injury
If another person is found liable for your spinal cord injury, that person will be held liable to the fullest extent of your injuries unless an intervening event arises. For example, if a car accident injures your back more severely than was apparent before (or immediately after) the accident, the liability of the negligent party is treated the same, even if no one could have suspected how serious the injury would eventually become. In contrast, if a few weeks following a first accident you were struck by another driver, which then made the injury worse, the second driver could be held liable for making your injury worse.
When surgery is undertaken to help with the spinal cord injury, this is an event that can intervene and “break the chain” of liability. Various questions frequently arise in medical malpractice lawsuits, such as was the surgery done poorly, and if so, did this make the condition worse? Or was this simply a risk inherent in undergoing the surgery?
Surgical cases can be particularly tragic, as by nature, surgery attracts to the most serious cases, and even wise courses of treatment carry inherent risks. Surgical cases also tend to result in complicated legal proceedings, as lawyers and judges need to evaluate the decisions of doctors.
Consider the case of Sharp v Hubert, 2007 ABQB 221 (CanLII). In an attempt to fix an underlying spinal cord issue, Mr. Sharp underwent spinal surgery. In the process, a graft fell off and into the spinal cord itself, resulting in partial paralysis. In this case, Mr. Sharp could not recover against his doctor, who had performed the surgery competently and had appraised him of the risks.
The same principles apply to chiropractors, as demonstrated by Loffler v Cosman, 2010 ABQB 177 (CanLII). In this case, a chiropractor’s treatment of a “misaligned spine” resulted in a much more complex medical issue – a herniated disk and a spinal fusion. Here, the chiropractor was deemed to not to be at fault, however, due to a thorough explanation of the risks, and so the plaintiff received no compensation.
Unfortunately, treatment efforts can sometimes worsen spinal injuries, even if undertaken in good faith. The case of Malinowski v Schneiber, 2010 ABQB 734 is a successful one against a chiropractor in comparable circumstances, where the chiropractor misdiagnosed and twice treated the plaintiff, following which emergency neurosurgery was required.
If you are dealing with a spinal cord injury after a car accident or medical treatment, speaking with a personal injury lawyer can help you understand who may be responsible and what options you have. Braithwaite Boyle can review your situation and explain the next steps in your claim.
Treatment, Care, and Mitigation Plans for Spinal Cord Injuries
One last crucial factor to consider is taking appropriate care for yourself if you suffer a spinal cord injury. Of course, you will hope to improve as much and as quickly as possible. Continuing to care for any condition that arises is important for both your medical recovery and for any legal proceedings as well. If your condition fails to improve because of steps you may have been obliged to take to care for your condition, the other party may no longer be obligated to pay for the results.
In many cases, the losses relate to income, but can involve medical expenses and personal care costs. In Goertzen v Sandstra, 2005 ABQB 624 (CanLII), the plaintiff was involved in a motor vehicle accident, resulting in lower back pain. After growing tired of assigned physiotherapy exercises, he discontinued them, but was not pressed by his doctors to continue. The court did not penalize him for doing so, as they did not consider it to have been a particularly blameworthy decision, nor that it was likely to have made a decisive impact. However, the court clearly contemplated that similar decisions, particularly had they been urged against by health practitioners, could have attracted financial consequences in the form of reduced damages.
None of the information provide is intended to replace the advice of a medical professional. Alongside your doctors, however, it may be worthwhile to consider a legal consultation as part of the team of professionals on your side. If you are recovering from a spinal cord injury you may need help to ease the financial burden while you are focused on recovery.
Speak with a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer in Edmonton, Calgary or Red Deer at Braithwaite Boyle
Particularly with spinal injuries, the impacts of the injury can be far-reaching. An initial prognosis may be unable to provide enough certainty or specificity for you to base your decisions about how much compensation is reasonable.
Our spinal cord injury lawyers provide a free initial consultation for your personal injury case, and we can work with you to ensure you have the information you need, both medical and financial, before deciding on how to resolve the legal issue through a settlement. Contact our lawyers today at 1-800-661-4902. We are located in Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer, Alberta.