The cost of living with a spinal cord injury

The injuries a person can suffer in a car wreck can vary in severity. For instance, in a minor fender-bender an individual may escape with no injuries whatsoever. However, in a high-speed rear-end collision a driver may suffer from whiplash or broken bones. In the worst cases, outside of fatal accidents, victims suffer serious spinal cord injuries or a traumatic brain injury. Recovering from these injuries can be physically challenging, and in some cases a full recovery is impossible. As if this isn’t enough to dishearten a severely injured individual, the truth of the matter is that these victims also face devastating financial losses as well.

The costs associated with a spinal cord injury can be significant. An individual who suffers from high tetraplegia can expect to spend more than $1 million in the first year following the accident, and up to nearly $185,000 each year after that. Even less severe spinal cord injuries, such as those that leave an individual with incomplete motor functioning at a lower level, can result in more than $300,000 in losses the first year, and more than $40,000 each subsequent year.

Looking at this over the course of a lifetime, spinal cord injury victims can face seemingly insurmountable damages. An individual who suffers from high tetraplegia can wind up spending nearly $5 million dollars if the injury is suffered when the victim is approximately 25-years-old. Those suffering from an injury that leave them with incomplete motor function can face more than $1.5 million in financial costs.

The average person cannot afford these losses, especially when their injury leaves them unable to work and earn a wage. Therefore, in an attempt to recover lost wages, medical expenses and rehabilitation costs, victims who find themselves in this position need to consider aggressively pursuing a personal injury lawsuit if their injury was caused by the negligence of another.