Can a car crash paralyze you for life? | Loughlin FitzGerald, P.C.
If you suffer a spinal cord injury, you will have little or no motion or feeling in the parts of your body below the point of your injury. This paralysis goes by two names: paraplegia and tetraplegia, commonly called quadriplegia. As their names imply, paraplegia caused by a lumbar region injury affects your two legs and feet, causing you to lose movement and sensation in them. Quadriplegia caused by a thoracic region injury affects all four of your limbs, i.e., your two arms and hands as well as your two legs and feet. Quadriplegics generally retain small amounts of arm motion, but seldom can they move their fingers. Nor do they have much, if any, sensation in these two limbs.
Should you suffer either paraplegia or tetraplegia, any part of your torso below your injury point likewise will become immobile and insensate. Not only will this confine you to a wheelchair in order to move from place to place, you likewise will lose control of your bladder and bowel functions. If your spinal cord injury occurs in your cervical region, you may be unable to breathe without a mechanical ventilator.