If you suffer a spinal cord injury on the job, it can have an extensive impact on your life. The financial costs can be extraordinarily high. Part of the reason for this is that a spinal cord injury can last for the rest of your life, leading to a permanent disability.
One thing that affects the cost is the type of injury or where it’s located on the body. For instance, a low tetraplegia occurs between the C5 and C8 vertebrae. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation estimates that this will cost over $769,000 in the first year and over $113,000 for each subsequent year. On the other hand, a high tetraplegia, between the C1 and C4 vertebrae, can cost over $1 million in the first year, with costs close to $200,000 for each following year.
Age at the time of injury
Another factor to keep in mind is how old a person is when they suffer the injury. A high tetraplegia suffered at age 25, for instance, will have lifetime costs estimated at $4.7 million. The same injury suffered at age 50, however, is estimated to cost more than $2.5 million over a lifetime.
When someone has to live with their injury for longer, it has a greater impact on their ability to earn, as they could be losing wages for decades. They may also need long-term care and assistance, which gets more expensive the longer it lasts.
If you suffered such a serious injury on the job, you must be sure you know how to seek proper workers’ compensation benefits.
