Spinal Cord Injury

New hope on the horizon

About 200,000 people living in the United States are paraplegics and quadriplegics due to injuries sustained to their spinal cords. Every year, about 10,000 more Americans join their unfortunate ranks, frequently incurring their spinal cord injuries in truck accidents, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, construction accidents and slips and falls.

Spinal cord injuries result in the loss or limitation of sensation and movement (paralysis) throughout the body. The extent of the injury often depends on where the injury takes place along the spinal cord. The spinal cord has 33 vertebrae and is divided into four areas, from the neck to the base of the back. These areas are known as the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral regions of the spinal cord. Injuries that occur in the cervical region of the spinal cord (around the neck) are invariably the most critical, primarily because this region controls blood flow to the brain and channels impulses and sensations that allow the brain to interpret and respond to the body. When an injury to the cervical region occurs, a “disconnect” between the brain and the rest of the body is often the result.

Spinal cord injuries that occur in the thoracic, lumbar and sacral regions of the spinal cord are not as severe as cervical injuries, but this is only in a relative sense. Most spinal cord injuries bring about life-changing obstacles that result in either paralysis from the waist down (paraplegia) or the neck down (quadriplegia).

Many people see those with spinal cord injuries as weak and helpless. Strapped in their wheelchairs without the ability to move, let alone participate fully in daily life, we often pity spinal cord injury victims, not knowing that simply surviving a spinal cord injury requires an inner strength that few of us can truly understand. MHLRT attorneys have seen this rare strength in many of our clients who have suffered spinal cord injuries, and it is a strength with which we are always honored to be associated.

Like so many of our clients, MHLRT spinal cord injury attorneys have tremendous faith in the possibilities of medical science. We support the revolutionary initiatives of stem cell research, therapeutic cloning and other areas of medical research that will someday bring miraculous remedies to today’s most debilitating injuries and diseases. Along with uncovering new ways to treat cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's and heart disease, scientists believe that stem cell research holds the secrets to healing spinal cord injuries and restoring those whose lives have been sidelined by them.

MHLRT spinal cord injury attorneys believe that the arrival of these answers is not a question of “if”, but “when.” Meanwhile, our job as attorneys is to ensure that our clients can survive in comfort and financial security until that day arrives. Surprisingly, accomplishing this is often a difficult challenge. Facing down insurance companies and protecting our clients’ interests is a tricky and time consuming process, even in the cases of spinal cord injury, but we’ve done it successfully since 1946. With so much hope on the horizon, continuing to serve the long-term interests of spinal cord injury victims is more important today than ever before.