Costs of living with spinal cord injuries are astronomical

Costs of living with spinal cord injuries are astronomical
On Behalf of Bradley, Drendel & Jeanney • Nov 17, 2017
Spinal cord injuries are devastating to their victims. An injury to a victim’s spinal cord can render a Reno resident unable to move their arms and legs, unable to breathe on their own and unable to live the life that they had worked so hard to achieve prior to their injury-causing accident. In addition to the potentially devastating personal losses a victim may sustain as a result of a spinal cord injury, there is the secondary and no less devastating issue of the financial costs victims of spinal cord injuries must take on in order to keep themselves alive.

According to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation , the lifetime costs of maintaining a person with a severe spinal cord injury can reach into the millions of dollars. A number of factors can influence the exact financial burden that a victim will be forced to pay, and those factors can include but are not limited to the severity and extent of the victim’s injury and paralysis and the age of the victim at the time they suffer their spinal cord injury.

For example, it is estimated that a 25-year-old victim of a very serious spinal cord accident may have lifetime medical costs in excess of $4.7 million. A 50-yeear-old person who sustains a similarly devastating injury may have lifetime medical costs of more than $2.5 million.

Even less pervasive spinal cord injuries may result in victims paying millions of dollars over the course of their lives just to keep themselves functional. It is truly heartbreaking that victims of spinal cord injuries can face financial hardship simply for having the bad luck of sustaining a devastating injury at the hands of another person. However, those whose injuries were caused by negligence on the part of others may have legal rights to seek compensation for their spinal cord injury costs.