Getting rear-ended by a careless driver on a California boulevard can lead to serious back and spine issues for you. Falling down a set of stairs after a handrail comes loose might leave you with serious vertebrae compression that creates tremendous pain.
There are few more dangerous and concerning injuries than damage to the spinal cord and to vertebrae. A vertebral fracture can cause nerve damage and even leave you paralyzed. Living through such a frightening accident and injury caused by someone’s carelessness may force you to wonder if you’ll receive help in recovery.
Contact a California Vertebral Fracture Injury Lawyer for a Free Consultation
After suffering a serious vertebral fracture injury in a car crash or any other personal injury accident, you may have real doubts that the at-fault party will provide what you’ll need to pay for every recovery bill.
That understandable doubt is a good reason to talk with a legal professional about what your spine injury is really worth and what you should be demanding. Contact Maison Law of California for a free case evaluation to answer these questions and more.
It’s a no-risk way to learn about every benefit available to you and your family. You’ll also get help in determining how to secure the maximum compensation for your vertebrae injury.
Vertebral Fracture Injury Dangers in California Accidents
UCLA Health describes Vertebral Fractures (spinal fractures) as fractures in the bones that protect the spinal cord. A vertebral fracture is also commonly referred to as a broken back. This injury can occur anywhere along the 33 bones or vertebrae that make up the spine.
Spine fractures form in osteoporosis patients and also result from high-trauma accidents like traffic collisions and sports injuries. UCLA doctors would perform X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans to diagnose the damage.
Types of Vertebral Fractures
According to Penn Medicine, most vertebral fractures are caused by high velocity impacts from auto accidents, motorcycle and bicycle accidents, slip-and-falls, trip-and-falls and falls from heights.
Some vertebral fractures can be treated with rest and medication, but more serious fractures require surgery. If left untreated, serious vertebral fractures can cause permanent nerve or even spinal cord damage.
There are three types of vertebral fractures:
- Compression Fracture: These occur when the front of a vertebral body collapses. Compression fractures might be the most common vertebral fracture.
- Axial Burst Fracture: This is a type of a compression fracture, but the vertebra is crushed in all directions. Axial burst fractures might be the most dangerous type of vertebral fracture because of the possibility of spinal cord involvement.
- Chance Fracture: This fracture is also known as a flexion-distraction fracture. It’s caused when a vertebra is pulled apart as a result of a forceful and violent forward flex injury. These are often caused by car accidents.
Treating Vertebral Fractures After a California Accident
As per the Cleveland Clinic, most vertebral fractures are treated by immobilization with a brace or corset for a few months. This will take pressure off of the affected area of the spine, reduce pain and prevent spinal deformity.
Surgery is a real possibility. In some cases, vertebrae are fused together so they can support each other. Screws may also be inserted to keep a broken vertebra stable. The Cleveland clinic has had remarkable success with two different procedures known as vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty. Vertebroplasty is being used to treat compression fractures. In this procedure, bone cement is injected into the fractured vertebra. When hardens, it strengthens the spinal column. With kyphoplasty, a cavity is made in the fracture bone, and that’s also filled with bone cement that seals off cracks. For severe fractures, the vertebra can be removed and replaced with surgical hardware.
Recovery from Spine Fracture Injuries
Like most broken bones, there is likely to be residual pain and discomfort from a vertebral fracture. In the context of surgery, it might not relieve you of all of the pain and discomfort. Unfortunately, the only way to ascertain whether a surgery will be 100% successful with any degree of certainty is to go ahead with the procedure and see how you heal.
These treatments can cost anywhere from $5,000 for less intensive surgery and all the way up to $100,000 or more for complex procedures. And doesn’t factor in additional surgeries required and physical therapy costs. These enormous surgery bills should never fall to a victim who was hurt due to the negligence of another driver, or a business owner or landlord. Victims need to speak with a California Traumatic Injury Lawyer to make sure they receive the support they need to recover physically and financially.
What Kind of Compensation Can My Spinal Injury Claim Earn?
A vertebral fracture injury can affect the way you have to live at home and how you perform your work duties. Sometimes these changes are permanent. If someone caused your broken back through a careless or reckless mistake, at-fault parties must be held accountable.
If a driver gets behind the wheel drunk and rams your car head-on, an injury claim can be filed against the at-fault motorist’s auto insurance provider. You could demand help with medical costs and the medical care and equipment you could need in the years to come.
The same support could be requested from a landlord who left a handrail on a set of stairs unrepaired. You could be going down the stairs when that handrail breaks and sends you down to dislocate or fracture vertebrae.
The at-fault party’s insurance company would need to provide for your recovery and set you up to return to your normal lifestyle as much as possible. To make sure an insurance company is aware of every hardship you endure a list must be submitted with your vertebral injury claim. This is a critical step because anything left off this list would end up as an expense you and your family would be responsible for.
Through this list and by presenting strong evidence to show the fault in the personal injury accident, your California Spinal Fracture Injury Lawyer works to maximize the insurance settlement money you receive.
Some of the factors that might earn you additional money are some hardships you may not have thought of.
- Past and future hospital and physical therapy bills.
- Lifelong support for any permanent disfigurement. A spine injury may leave you hunched and with a deformed spinal column.
- Support for any permanent disability. Being unable to walk or suffering with lifelong nerve damage could leave you unable to work You may be dependent on devices for mobility and for self-care.
- Support for physical pain. This includes the physical pain you experience in an accident and the mental trauma you endure in a vertebral fracture recovery.
- Support for emotional pain. The anxiety and depression that may come along with adapting to a severe spine injury. The loss of enjoyment of life and the loss of intimacy with a partner can also earn additional compensation.
- Travel costs while you are off your feet with a broken vertebra and must attend medical appointments. Your California Spine Fracture Lawyer would ask for reimbursement for trips to see specialists, perhaps out of city or out of state.
- Personal property damage replacement. Money for a new car after a vehicle crash.
- Past and future lost income. This may include lifetime support if you can never return to work. Money for career training if you must change jobs in order to accommodate a physical disability.
- Wrongful death benefits. Families left to mourn a loved one who received a vertebral fracture injury and eventually died from complications can ask for support. They should receive help with funeral expenses and leftover medical bills. The income the deceased can no longer provide the family in the future should also be reimbursed.
How Can I Prevent Insurance Companies from Denying Spine Injury Compensation?
Your financial burdens and suffering should determine the level of support you receive from insurance companies. Unfortunately, the amount on a spine injury settlement check often depends more on how effectively you can avoid common unfair insurance tactics.
A car accident will leave you trying to prove your innocence to the at-fault driver’s insurance adjuster. A fall on someone’s property or place of business will leave you to convince a commercial liability insurance company of what you need to recover. They won’t make it easy. They’ll defend their policyholders no matter what an accident report says.
These are just a few of the strategies you should beware of when seeking vertebral fracture support after a California personal injury accident:
- Delaying Accident Response: When an insurance company knows their policyholder is to blame for an accident, they will immediately try to stall. As your hospital bills multiply, insurance representatives hope you become more and more desperate. Your traumatic injury accident attorneyputs a stop to this shady practice and ensures your hardships are taken seriously.
- Lowball Settlement Offer: Once you’ve waited far too long, insurance companies hope you’re desperate enough for any compensation at all that you’ll accept a lowball settlement check. Without experience in the insurance game, you’ll have no way of knowing that this offer will leave you paying the remaining bills out of your own pocket in the future.
- Shift Blame: Insurance companies also like to question the blame in an accident, even if it’s quite clear. They may try to show that you were speeding at the time of a freeway car crash. They may attempt to show you were looking at a cell phone when you slipped and fell on a puddle left out on a grocery store aisle. These weak arguments quickly get disproven by your skilled California spine injury attorney.
- Cast Doubt on Your Injuries: Insurance adjusters like to question how serious your vertebrae injury is. They might claim you already had spine or back issues before the accident. They doubt victims in real pain simply in the hopes of getting them to accept less in vertebral fracture settlement money.
Contact a California Injury Lawyer about your Vertebral Fracture Today
If you or a family member suffered a vertebral fracture in any type of California accident, contact us here at Maison Law as soon as you can. We’ll arrange for a free consultation and case evaluation with an experienced and skilled personal injury lawyer from our law firm.
We promise to listen to you closely, answer your questions truthfully, and advise you of the totality of all of your legal options. There’s no obligation but if you decide the California spine injury lawyers can help you get the most out of your injury settlement you don’t have to worry about having the money to pay them. They don’t get paid unless they win settlement money for you and your family.
