Back Injuries

Serious back injuries are some of the most debilitating and complicated injuries that you can suffer, sometimes requiring lifetime care. They are also common injuries that accident victims have to deal with, and can come from a variety of different situations – including accidents that do not seem like they are very severe. Worse, back injuries can lead to other medical complications as the rest of your body tries to deal with a decrease in mobility or other weakness.

The personal injury lawyers at the Baltimore law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help get you the compensation you need to recover from a back injury and get back on your feet.

Types of Back Injuries

Your back is one of the most central aspects of your anatomy. A significant portion of your nervous system runs alongside your spine, which is itself a huge part of your skeletal structure. When your spine gets damaged, it can throw off the rest of your body, while an injury to the muscles that support your spine can drastically reduce your mobility and be debilitating for years after the incident that caused your injuries. Worse, properly diagnosing and then treating a back injury can be tricky because of the variety of ways that your back can get hurt and the numerous symptoms that an injury can produce.

Some of just the most common and debilitating back injuries include:

• Broken, fractured, or fused vertebrae
• Nerve damage, including sciatica
• Slipped, bulging, ruptured, or herniated discs
• Muscle strains and sprains, including lumbar strains
• Whiplash
• Spinal cord injuries

Each one of these injuries can quickly lead to others if it is not treated quickly and properly, as so much relies on the health of your back.

What Causes Back Injuries?

Back injuries can happen in a huge variety of ways. However, some of the most common in and around the city of Baltimore include:

• Car accidents. The impact and resulting jolt of a car crash can shove your back and its muscles in strange ways that it was not designed to accommodate. When this happens, it can lead to strains that run a wide range of severity. Blunt force trauma to your back – common in the most severe car accidents – can directly cause serious back injuries, as well.
• Workplace accidents. Particularly in physically-demanding jobs like construction, back injuries can happen when something goes wrong on the worksite.
• Repetitive motion injuries. Not all workplace injuries happen in a sudden accident. Many are the result of endless days of doing the same thing, over and over again. Over time, this can wear down the muscles in your back, causing chronic pain and other medical conditions.
• Slip and fall injuries. If you slip and fall on a hazardous condition or get tripped up on someone else’s property, the impact and jolt of the fall can break bones and strain muscles, including those in your back that your other body parts rely on.
• Medical malpractice. One of the most common sources of nerve damage is medical malpractice, whether because a surgeon slipped just a tiny bit during an internal procedure, or because a doctor prescribed the wrong concoction of drugs.

Compensation for Back Injuries

If you suffer a back injury in a situation where you were not to blame – whether on the job site or in a car accident or in a variety of other circumstances where it would be unfair to hold you responsible for what happened – you deserve to be compensated for your losses.

Contrary to popular belief and what insurance companies will tell you, this compensation goes above and beyond just the costs of your medical expenses. Back injuries are debilitating and painful, and the personal injury law in Maryland recognizes this. Therefore, you can also recover reimbursement for:

• Lost wages and earning capacity. The debilitation of a serious back injury is extreme, especially if the back injury involves nerve damage. You can even be left paralyzed. Two ways this impacts your life is by drastically reducing your ability to earn a living and by keeping you out of work throughout your recovery. Because these are causally related to your injury and you were not responsible for it, you deserve to be reimbursed for these financial losses.
• Physical pain. Back injuries are also incredibly painful, even if they do not involve nerve damage. Muscle strains from conditions like whiplash can quickly become chronic, leaving you to deal with a constant feeling of pain in your back.
• Suffering. The debilitation of back injuries can also prevent you from doing the things that you so enjoyed doing, before the incident that got you hurt. Not being able to do the things you love is mentally draining, especially when you were not the one who caused the accident that got you hurt. The suffering from this frustration and feeling of victimization should be compensated, as well.
• Future medical expenses. Many back injuries require years of treatment. Just because you have not yet spent money for necessary medical care does not mean that the person responsible should be able to get away without reimbursing you. If you can prove that these expenses are likely, you can recover compensation for them, even though they have not happened, yet.

The common element to each and every one of these losses is simple: Your back injuries were not your fault, so it would be unfair to require you to bear the financial and emotional burden, in addition to the injury, itself.

Baltimore Personal Injury Lawyers at Gilman & Bedigian

The personal injury lawyers at Gilman & Bedigian in Baltimore strive to represent those who have been hurt through someone else’s negligence in the city and the state of Maryland. By advocating on your behalf both in the courtroom and outside of it, we can protect your rights and interests and ensure that you get the compensation you need and deserve for the terrible toll of the back injury that you have suffered. Contact us online to get started on your case.