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When you hear the term spinal cord injuries, you may think of people who survived incredibly traumatic events like skiing off a cliff or crashing in a small plane. But many spinal cord injuries are much more common and can happen to anyone. You could sustain a spinal cord injury by:

  • getting sideswiped by a truck at a busy intersection in Green Valley
  • slipping at the top of a wet staircase in a Summerlin office building and tumbling down a flight of stairs
  • being run down by a speedboat while driving a personal watercraft on Lake Mead
  • being struck by falling pallets from a shelf  in a Pahrump warehouse store
  • getting assaulted by drunken individuals on a Las Vegas sidestreet

There are two basic types of spinal cord injuries. An incomplete injury means that the damage to the spinal cord is not severe enough to fully prevent the nerves from relaying sensory messages to and from the brain. But with a complete injury, there is an absolute loss of communication between the brain and the site of the injury – and the parts of the body below the injury are left unable to function. Generally speaking, the higher up on the spine where the injury occurs, the greater the loss of bodily functions as a result.

Spinal cord injuries can lead to numerous types of dysfunction such as paraplegia and quadriplegia, where paralysis strikes various parts of the body. Other complications can include:

  • uncontrollable bowel or bladder functions
  • unstable or chronically low blood pressure
  • uneven or fluctuating body temperature
  • breathing and/or heart problems
  • constant pain

Therefore, spinal cord injuries are not to be taken lightly – so seek medical attention immediately if you lose sensation in any of your body parts after an accident. If the accident was caused by another party, be sure to contact a personal injury lawyer to help you get compensation for your medical bills.