What You Should Do After You Sustained a Spinal Cord Injury?

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The spinal cord is one of the most vital parts of the body. Injury to the spine can cause drastic effects that can impair the motor skills of an individual. Severe trauma brought by falling can cause severe pain and, at worst, disability. When this happens to you or any loved one, you should seriously think about filing for a spinal injury claim.

First of all, you should know the statute of limitations of this disability claim. These factors vary from state to state so you might have to do some research. If you don’t really get all the legalese that goes with this, hire the services of a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles. Nobody, other than an attorney, can help you understand the laws better.

Then, you should know and understand everything about the injury. The type or extent of injury can affect the approval of your claims.

These are the signs and symptoms of spinal injuries in relation to the spine’s three divisions:

•    Cervical. These are injuries in the neck area. An injury in this part of the spine could affect your breathing, as well as the functions of the arms, shoulders, wrists and hands. More than that, you’d also experience problems in your cardiovascular diseases.
•    Thoracic. This can affect your body’s upper torso and your abdominal muscles.
•    Lumboscral. This affects the control of the legs and hips, urinary system, and anus. The bowel and bladder, as well as sexual functions, may be severely affected by such injuries in this spinal area.

If you have been involved in an accident that caused you spinal injuries, you should make sure to file claims as soon as possible. In most states, you only have up to 60 days, from the time of the injury for the government to accept your application. That is why in cases where you get involved in accidents, you have to undergo all of the needed checks. You should also try everything and exhaust all possible means to understand the effect of the injuries that you have sustained.

People suffering from disabilities brought about by accidents need to still have a decent and normal life. That is why you should immediately go and file for that spinal injury claim the soonest possible time.

How the Injured Party Can Also Be Partially at Fault in an Accident

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Probably the most crucial part of any personal injury accident claim is determining fault. Usually, the one at fault for the accident is the one who is considered negligent. In tort law, a negligent person in a personal injury case must compensate the victim for the damages that he or she caused the latter. But then, in many jurisdictions, it is not always the negligent person who is to accept all the blame for a personal injury accident.

In some accident claims, there are situations in which sole liability is indeterminable. As it is, the two parties, the injured party and the defendant, may have shared the fault for a certain accident. In such circumstances, fault will be allocated between the parties involved through the state statutes of comparative and contributory negligence.

About contributory negligence

In this statute, the injured party who is found partially at fault for the accident may not be entitled to receive compensation to recover from the losses he or she incurred. The States of Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, along with the nation’s capital, has this kind of statute.

To illustrate an example, imagine Driver A’s colliding with Driver B’s car after the former made a left turn on a dark part of the intersection. Driver A is automatically at fault because of hitting Driver B. However, the latter was found out to have not been using headlights while driving. With contributory negligence factored in, Driver B won’t be entitled to recover losses because he or she was considered partially at fault for the accident.

About comparative negligence

If contributory negligence seems to be a harsh kind of statute, comparative negligence is deemed a more proportionate one. In this statute, the injured party partially at fault for an accident may be able to recover from the damages that he or she incurred. Pure comparative negligence is one of the negligence theory’s many types.

In pure comparative negligence, the damage recovery of a person partially at fault is reduced by the percentage of his or her fault. Going back to the previous example, if Person B is determined 80 percent at fault and that the total amount of damages is $10,000.00, he or she will only receive $2,000.00. The State of California is one of the 13 states that adopt this negligence theory.

Retaining legal representation

Retaining a Los Angeles personal injury lawyers is the best thing to do if a person is injured because of someone else’s negligence. Apart from that, the expertise of the legal representative would help in determining whether the plaintiff is partially at fault for the accident as stated in the negligence statutes.

Texting while Walking is Hazardous, Says Study

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At this day and age, life is incomplete if people don’t have their smartphones on their hands or pockets. Such gadgets have features that keep people preoccupied. On a certain standpoint, having smartphones shows that people are keeping pace with the times and that they always want to become updated wherever they may be.

Smartphones indeed are boredom killers. People always want to engage themselves in socializing with others through phone calls, text messaging, and through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Yes, our technology has reached far and beyond since the first mobile phone was introduced in the market.

But then, smartphones are not without its disadvantages. In fact, they are often seen as a form of distraction. No, it is not only about distracted driving, as many people often associate smartphones with. Pedestrians, too, are also at risk of getting distracted with their smartphones while they travel on foot within the city.

In a study published in Injury Prevention entitled “The Impact of Social and Technological Distraction on Pedestrian Crossing Behaviour” by the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center at the University of Washington, pedestrians using gadgets are four times more likely to do the following:

•    Ignore pedestrian traffic lights;
•    Cross the middle of the junction; or
•    Fail to look to the left and to the right before crossing the street.

Moreover, the study found out that 18 percent of the 1,000 pedestrians who took part in the study took almost two seconds longer to cross a junction of three to four lanes. Also, the study found that talking to others, as well as dealing with pets or children, increase the pedestrian’s chances of unsafe crossing on the road.

According to the researchers, pedestrian crashes kill about 4,000 people and injure around 60,000 more annually in the U.S. Truly, distracted walking is as potentially dangerous as distracted driving, with those using mobile gadgets more likely to be involved in a serious or fatal accident.

Incidentally, expert lawyers such as the Los Angeles personal injury lawyer advice all regular pedestrians to avoid using smartphones and other related devices while walking.