Spinal Cord Injury

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The word on the extended family grapevine tonight is that my wife’s cousin’s daughter, Alex McArthur, a recent Davidson College graduate, has been named Ms. Wheelchair America for the coming year. She has been in a wheelchair three years due to muscular dystrophy.

Last year, one of our clients, Alyson Roth, a spinal cord injury survivor, was Ms. Wheelchair California and a runner up for Ms. Wheelchair America.

Both Alyson and Alex are bright, beautiful and courageous young women.

If you ever suffer a major injury in metro Atlanta and are still able to talk, remember to say, "take me to Grady."  This is important because treatment at  a Level 1 trauma center significantly improves prospects of successful outcome. A recent article on "The Effects of Trauma Center Care, Admission Volume, and Surgical Volume on Paralysis After Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury" published in Annals of Surgery  concludes that trauma center care is associated with reduced paralysis after traumatic spinal cord injury, perhaps because of greater use of spinal surgery.  Hospitals that do not have trauma centers follow national guidelines to triage patients to trauma centers less than half the time, keeping patients in their facilities when they should be transported to a Level 1 trauma center.

So, as I said earlier, if you are in a serious accident within a 100 miles radius of Atlanta, remember these four words: "take me to Grady."

Spinal cord injury survivors may someday have more hope for functional recovery. An article in Brain by James Fawcett at Cambridge University summarizes research papers reporting functional recovery following a variety of treatments. These have included interventions that affect myelin inhibitory molecules and their receptors, or inhibitory chondroitin sulphate proteoglycans, and treatments in which the regenerative potential of axons has been stimulated through growth-factor receptors or manipulation of internal signalling pathways. The article suggests  it is probable that much of the useful recovery seen following treatment of animals with partial spinal cord lesions is due to the stimulation of plasticity.  However, there is a wide gap between basic research with lab animals and clinically useful treatments.

Survivors of spinal cord injury face life-long problems with mobility.  As an attorney representing spinal cord injury survivors, I have often addressed needs for adapted vehicles in life care plans. Now there is news of the first factory-built, wheelchair accessible car – the MV-1 – which is a milestone for the 14 million American adults who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices. We may list this in future life care plans for survivors of catastrophic spinal cord injury who are paraplegic or quadriplegic.

Atlanta may get a world class spinal cord injury research center. The Healthcare Institute for Neuro Recovery and Innovation (HINRI), according to a report this week in Atlanta Business Chronicle, would be one of a few centers in the world researching the complicated field of complete spinal cord injuries, in which the person loses all movement and sensation below the injury point on the spine.  Collaborating the U.S. military, universities and research centers around the world, it could draw more than $300 million in research grants and make the region a destination for patients and scientists

Atlanta is already home to the Shepherd Center, one of the top spinal cord injury specialty treatment centers in the United States.

One of our most inspirational spinal cord injury clients ever is Alyson Roth, who just completed her year as Ms. Wheelchair California. Click here to see her message on Youtube. Coincidentally, one of my wife’s younger relatives was recently selected as Ms. Wheelchair North Carolina.

As an Atlanta, Georgia, attorney focused on catastrophic injury cases, including spinal cord injury, brain injury, burn injury, and other serious injuries, I often find inspiration in the spirit and resilience of clients who refuse to be defeated by devastating injuries.

As a Georgia attorney representing people with spinal cord and brain injuries, I am always alert to new treatments that offer hope for a better life for them.

New animal studies at Children’s Hospital of Boston showed the suppression of the SOCS3 gene, an inhibitor of a growth pathway called mTOR — resulted in vigorous growth of axons and reactivation of nerve pathways.

Limited studies with mice are a long way from clinical treatment of humans, but it sounds promising.

Spinal cord injury can be utterly devastating. Researchers at Purdue University are working on an experimental drug that might restore the function of nerves damaged in spinal cord injuries by preventing short circuits caused when tiny "potassium channels" in the fibers are exposed.

The experimental compound, 4-aminopyridine-3-methyl hydroxide, has been shown to restore function to damaged axons, slender fibers that extend from nerve cells and transmit electrical impulses in the spinal cord.

As a trucking safety trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I’ve worked with quite a number of spinal cord injury survivors, and have had some good results. But not as good as the verdict a Chicago jury awarded last week.

In the Cook County case of Chraca v. Miles, an Illinois DOT vehicle collided with another vehicle in an intersection. Both drivers claimed that the other ran the red light, and the local police reconstruction was inconclusive. The private citizen, who was rendered an  incomplete paraplegic unable to walk without leg braces and the use of canes or a walker, was represented by Chicago lawyer Martin Healy, Jr. Last week a jury returned a verdict of $25 million.

Paraplegia is a horrific injury. Most people have little idea of the complications that accompany it, including  muscle spasticity, pressure sores and  autonomic dysreflexia.

This paraplegic’s tragedy would have been compounded if the crash had been in Georgia. In a similar case based on the negligence of a Georgia DOT employee in the course of his employment, recovery would have been limited to one million dollars under our State Tort Claims Act, which limits payments to $1 million per person and $3 million per accident. We would have been forced to search for other sources of compensation as the recovery from GA DOT would have been grossly inadequate.