Reading Spinal Cord Injury Attorney
Spinal cord injuries are catastrophic wounds that can leave you not only struggling with significant medical bills but also with the inability to live your life as you used to. These injuries are often permanent and can lead to a loss of sensation or function below the wound.
One of your priorities after suffering harm in an accident in Reading, Pennsylvania, that someone else caused should be to pursue a personal injury claim against them. Working with our experienced Reading spinal cord injury lawyers will greatly improve your chances of receiving fair compensation.
Our skilled attorneys can guide you through every step of the process so that you can focus on healing and adjusting to living with the injury you sustained. Learn more about how these injuries occur and why an attorney is so important.
Do you need legal assistance with your spinal cord injury claim in Reading, Pennsylvania? Wilk Law Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers specializes in spinal cord and back injury claims. Call (302) 438-8018 for a free consultation today!
How Our Spinal Cord Injury Lawyers in Reading Will Help You
At Wilk Law Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers, we’re dedicated to offering the dependable and compassionate representation you deserve. We know how much stress you’re under and how difficult it can be to address the various needs you may have because of such a serious injury.
Our award-winning legal team begins the process by evaluating your claim and getting a sense of how the injuries you suffered occurred. We’ll ask for a full account of the accident and, if we feel we can help you fight for compensation, we will begin an investigation.
This investigation will involve going to the scene of the accident, gathering photos and camera footage that show how you suffered your injury, and speaking with eyewitnesses. For the most complex cases or the ones where liability is disputed, we can also rely on expert witnesses like accident reconstructionists and engineers.
We will get your medical records, too, and speak with paramedics and doctors to understand how your injuries will impact your life. Using all of this information, we will calculate the damages you may be entitled to receive. These include medical expenses, lost wages, and physical and emotional suffering.
Our spinal cord injury attorneys in Reading, Pennsylvania, will then begin negotiating with insurance companies to try to achieve a settlement. We will aggressively fight for the maximum possible amount. If insurers make low offers or dispute what happened, our team will discuss the next steps with you and may recommend taking the case to trial.
Attorney Tyler Wilk, our founder, has more than 10 years of experience with spinal cord injury cases and can provide the comprehensive legal support you deserve.
Common Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries
In the United States, there are approximately 18,000 new cases of spinal cord injuries a year. The majority of them are the result of accidents.
Traffic Accidents
Traffic collisions cause a large number of these injuries. In people under the age of 65, motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of spinal cord injuries. Sometimes, these injuries can appear with symptoms similar to whiplash, leading people to write it off as a minor wound.
In a car accident, your spine can suffer direct trauma. This can occur, for example, if you’re flung against the steering wheel or dashboard. You may also experience sudden movements that shake your spine violently, potentially leading to cracked vertebrae.
You are even more likely to sustain these injuries if you’re a vulnerable road user, like a pedestrian or cyclist. Being hit by a vehicle can mean being tossed against the pavement or flung onto the car, both of which could be catastrophic for your spine.
Falls
In people 65 and older, falls are the most common cause of spinal cord injuries. That’s also the case for people who work in certain industries, like construction.
During a fall, your spine can suffer a direct blow that could result in fractures, dislocations, and disc damage. Neck hyperextension can also occur, especially if you land on your buttocks. This can lead to an injury called central cord syndrome that could result in weakness in your hands and arms.
It’s also possible to bend or compress your spine when you slip and fall. This can mean fractures and damage to the nerves in the spinal cord itself.
Medical Malpractice
In some cases, medical malpractice can lead to these wounds. Birth injuries that damage the spinal cord can occur, for example, if a doctor uses too much force during labor to pull the baby out.
Effects of a Spinal Cord Injury
The effects that a spinal cord injury will have on you depend greatly on where the injury occurs and what type of injury it is. Some of the most common symptoms that you can experience are:
- Numbness or tingling in your hands or feet
- Changes in sensation
- Pain in the back, neck, or head
- Difficulty breathing
- Weakness or loss of coordination
- Muscle spasms
- Change or loss of motor function
- Trouble walking or maintaining your balance
- Changes in sexual function
Typically, the most severe of these injuries occur in the cervical region of the spine. This is your neck area. You can lose sensation below the wound and could experience paralysis, loss of bowel and urinary control, and even the loss of respiratory function.
Proving Negligence in a Spinal Cord Injury Lawsuit
When you begin the process of filing a claim against the negligent party, it’s essential to understand the legal basis behind these kinds of legal actions. For the majority of these cases, you and your Reading spinal cord injury lawyer will have to demonstrate that negligence took place.
Negligence refers to the failure to exercise the care that another reasonable person would have displayed if they were placed in the same circumstances. To prove negligence, it’s necessary to show that the other party owed you a duty of care that they breached and which led to your losses.
In instances when the injury occurred because of a defective product, there may be strict liability laws in place that don’t require you to show negligence occurred. Our experienced Reading personal injury lawyers can help you understand what you will need to prove that you deserve compensation.
Who Can I Sue for an SCI?
When you begin a claim, you have to assess whether another party would have been able to prevent the injury. If the answer is yes, then the defendant might be liable for what you suffered.
In accidents involving motor vehicles, there could be one or multiple parties involved. Even the vehicle’s manufacturer could be liable if one of the parts failed, and that’s what caused the accident.
If you slip and fall and suffer a spinal cord injury, you can hold the property owner or manager responsible for your losses. Premises liability laws require that the owners maintain their property in a way that is reasonably safe for visitors, so if you’re hurt because of a danger that they knew or should have known about and did nothing to fix, you can file a lawsuit against them.
If medical negligence led your baby to suffer a spinal cord injury, then you may be able to hold the healthcare provider liable. Keep in mind that not every injury that occurs while getting medical care can be considered malpractice. The key factor is being able to show that another medical professional would not have made the same error.
If you can do that, then it’s possible to file against the person. If the injury occurred in a facility such as a hospital, it may be an option to file against this institution, as well. This is only possible if the liable medical professional was an employee and not considered an independent contractor.
Recovering Damages After a Spinal Cord Injury
A spinal cord injury can leave you with both economic and non-economic losses. It stands to reason, then, that you should be able to receive compensation for all of this.
Economic damages cover financial losses, beginning with medical expenses. You could have spent days in the hospital as well as weeks or months getting rehabilitative or occupational therapy to learn how to live with the aftermath of the injury you suffered. You should be able to get compensation for these expenses.
Because spinal cord injuries are often permanent, you’ll likely need ongoing care. You can receive coverage for future treatments as well as for the type of daily assistance you may need from nurses.
Many people who suffer spinal cord injuries are no longer able to work in the same capacity or at all. Economic damages cover these losses, too, including past wages that you missed as you were getting treatment.
Non-economic damages address losses that aren’t as simple to place a price tag on. Suffering a serious injury can mean experiencing physical and emotional distress of all sorts. Pain and suffering damages can cover this. You won’t be able to live your life as you used to, so you can claim loss of enjoyment of life, as well.
Calculating the Value of Your Spine Injury Settlement
One of the most important things that our Reading spinal cord injury lawyers offer is the full calculation of your losses. To do so, our team will look at the severity of the injury and how it impacts your job and your everyday life. Every case is unique, so all factors will be considered.
The injuries that are most severe and that prevent you from working or doing everything you used to love doing are the ones that will be worth the highest settlements — especially if there’s substantial evidence to demonstrate the defendant’s liability.
But what about pain and suffering? Those are losses that aren’t simple to assign a number to. Your Reading spinal cord injury lawyer can assign a cost to each day you spend recovering or can use the multiplier method, which involves multiplying your financial losses by a factor between 1.5 and 5 to obtain a value for your non-economic losses.
Filing Your Claim on Time
As with other types of legal actions, there are statutes of limitations that you need to abide by. Pennsylvania gives you two years from the date when you suffered the injury. There may be exceptions to this, however, that could shorten your available time, which is why relying on experienced legal counsel is essential.
There could also be some circumstances that could stop the clock, such as when a plaintiff is a minor or when the defendant leaves the state before you get a chance to file against them. These are very specific cases, however, and you should never assume that they apply to you without speaking to a lawyer familiar with your case.
If you miss the statute of limitations, you likely won’t be able to receive any compensation for your losses. With such a severe injury, you shouldn’t risk this.
Consult With Our Spine Injury Law Firm Today
If you have sustained a catastrophic injury because of another party’s conduct, you may be entitled to compensation. To have a chance to receive the assistance you need, it’s essential that you hire experienced Reading spinal cord injury lawyers to represent you.
At Wilk Law Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers, we’re dedicated to providing compassionate and tenacious assistance to those who have been injured. Contact our team to schedule a free consultation with a lawyer.
Locations our legal team assists victims of spinal cord injuries includes West Chester, Philadelphia, Downingtown, Coatesville, Frazer, Exton, Phoenixville, Valley Forge, Devon, and more.