No matter how you receive one, spinal cord injuries may affect you for the rest of your life. They might impact your motor control, they are difficult to recover from and medical science has yet to develop a proven cure. The time you may spend in the hospital for surgery or a physical therapy site for rehabilitation comes with a cost. If your injury results from negligence or some other’s fault, you should not have to shoulder that cost on your own dime.
The National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center details the historical lifetime costs of SCIs, which may help you understand the kind of road ahead of you or anyone suffering from these injuries.
Expenses in the first year
Not every SCI is the same — the higher you get on the spinal column, the higher likelihood you suffer more widespread effects:
- Losing your motor function at any level could cost you an average of over $375,000.
- Paraplegia (paralysis of your lower half) runs up an average of over $560,000.
- Low Tetraplegia (injury to the C5-C8 vertebrae resulting in varying paralysis through your body) may cost an average around $830,000
- High Tetraplegia (injury to the C1-C4 vertebrae resulting in worse paralysis through your body) may cost an average over $1.1 million.
Expenses in subsequent years.
Maintenance of your lifestyle and recovery continues to cost you, as it is likely these injuries are permanent fixtures in your day to day. Motor function loss may cost $45,000/year and those averages run higher all the way up to High Tetraplegia which averages to nearly $200,000/year.
Understanding the full damages of your injury may help you build a case to recover compensation you need to care for your immediate and long-term needs.