Spinal Cord Injury

Video Transcript:
Cindy Speaker: When a spinal cord injury occurs it often severs communication between the brain and the body resulting in significant impairment. My guest today is North Carolina Personal Injury Attorney, Michael A. DeMayo of the Law Offices of Michael A. DeMayo and he’s going to talk with us about the legal ramifications often associated with the spinal cord injury. So Michael, thank you for being with us today.

Michael A. DeMayo: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Cindy Speaker: Well, Michael what exactly is a spinal cord injury and what kind of damage typically results from this type of injury?

Michael A. DeMayo: Well, unfortunately spinal cord injury is generally your most serious injury or it can affect a variety of different areas of your body, it can affect the functions of your brain and it can affect the ability for you to mobilize. A lot of times people that have severe — you hear severe spinal cord injuries. They are paralyzed either from the waist down or the neck down. So unfortunately oftentimes this type of injury is unfortunately not correctible, there’s not anything you can really do to help that person get any better and it’s generally permanent in nature and the injuries tend to be fairly debilitating and serious.

Cindy Speaker: Well Michael let me ask you this, for those who had survived this type of serious injury what is the recommended treatment?

Michael A. DeMayo: Well, there is some experimental treatment. I think folks that might be familiar with the gentleman who used to play Superman, Reeves who was a big proponent of pushing for stem cell research and a number of different types of research. But unfortunately the recommended treatment is probably learning how to adapt with the disability as opposed to being able to foresee any kind of significant improvement and at least until science changes or medicine changes. A lot of times the recommended treatment is obviously you’re dealing with a bunch of neurosurgeons and neurologist and maybe orthopedic surgeons but from a practical standpoint you know there’s not a whole lot of treatment that someone can receive for this type of injury unfortunately.

Cindy Speaker: So, unfortunately most spinal cord patients require lifelong care of varying degrees which I’m sure is very expensive.

Michael A. DeMayo: Absolutely. Generally, when we have a client who has these types of injuries we will put together something called the Life Care Plan and what that would do is it will forecast their needs medically and potentially caretaking throughout the course of their life and so while they may have some significant medical needs and medical surgeries that would be required in the future, there’s obviously also going to be a component that deals with their care more than likely or oftentimes they’re going to need 24-hour care seven days a week, and whether that’s in-home or whether that’s in some sort of supportive care facility, obviously the cost can be astronomical.

Cindy Speaker: So the Life Care Plan is foundational to determining the value of a spinal cord injury case. Now, you said something that the family can put together on behalf of their loved one?

Michael A. DeMayo: Yeah. It would be ill advised, is that a nice way of putting it? It would be ill advised for someone with this type of injury or family member with this type of injury to try to handle this on their own. There’s a level of sophistication and a level of experience and knowledge that is really required for this type of case, this type of injury, and for someone to try to go alone without the experts and the knowledgeable individuals who deal with this on a fairly regular basis would be full hearty in my opinion.

Cindy Speaker: Well Michael, if someone has specific questions how can they reach your office?

Michael A. DeMayo: Well there’s three ways they can reach our office. They can call us toll-free at 877-333-1000. They can go on the web, we can be reached at DeMayoLaw.com and then now we have another option which is by texting us. If they text the word De Mayo which is my last name and they use the number 333-100, so just one zero off of our main number, they’ll actually have some options within which they get in contact with someone from our office.

Cindy Speaker: Very good. Michael, thank you for time for today.

Michael A. DeMayo: Thank you very much Cindy.

Cindy Speaker: This is Cindy Speaker from the Main Street Law.