Salt Lake City Personal Injury Blog

When you think about a coma, what do you imagine? Is it someone who is sleeping and never wakes up? Is it someone who eventually has life support removed after donating organs to others? Those situations can be the reality for patients who are in comas, but they aren't always.

Comas, by definition, are prolonged states of unconsciousness. Though people in comas are unresponsive, they may eventually wake. Usually, when patients come out of them, they slowly emerge, as if they are waking over a long period of time.

All types of personal injuries can affect your life, but the two that are the most serious are spinal cord injuries and traumatic head injuries. The brain and spine are two parts of the body that are difficult to repair once damaged, and they both control your body. When the brain or spinal cord can't communicate properly, you may lose functionality and struggle to survive.

Both traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries can result in the need for around-the-clock care, medical monitoring and seemingly continuous medical treatments, such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and others.

Compensation for personal injuries is often awarded based on two main types of damages: compensatory and punitive. Compensatory damages are granted as an attempt to "make whole" what was damaged or injured as the result of an injury. This can include more than just the treatment of an injury. Damages consider wages lost from time off work, long term recovery costs as well as permanent disabilities caused by the accident. The plaintiff is being compensated for these losses.

Spinal cord injuries are often devastating to those who suffer them. Depending on the location of the injury, the patient may have a lack of sensation or other symptoms nearly anywhere in their body. While not all spinal cord injuries are the same, they can produce a range of symptoms such as:

• Weakness in the limbs
• A lack of sensation or no sensation from the point of injury downward
• Possible organ involvement
• Tingling
• A feeling of heat or burning sensation
• Numbness
• Paralysis

Looking at these symptoms, it's easy to see why a spinal injury has such a major impact on patients.