Personal Injury News Blog

Paralysis, the inability to move muscles, is caused by injury or disease affecting the motor neurons, or nerves that send impulses to muscles. There are two kinds of motor neurons: upper and lower. The upper motor neurons send impulses from the brain to the lower motor neurons. The lower motor neurons send the impulses on to the muscles. Paralysis can result from a malfunction of either set of neurons. Malfunction of the upper motor neurons usually affects both sides of the body, while damage to the lower motor neurons may only affect one side.

Common causes

Paralysis can be caused by both injury and disease, and it can come on suddenly or gradually over time. Some common causes of sudden-onset paralysis are:

• Spinal cord injury
• Head injury
• Trauma to the neck or back
• Stroke
• Transient ischemic attack (transient stroke whose symptoms are temporary)
• Blood vessel rupture in the brain
• Arterial blockage

The most common causes of the above injuries are auto accidents, motorcycle accidents, falls, violent crimes, and sports injuries.

Causes of gradual-onset paralysis include:

• Tumors • Brain tumors
• Nerve compression
• Nerve entrapment
• Cerebral palsy
• Spina bifida
• Multiple sclerosis
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Guillain-Barre syndrome
• Lou Gehrig’s disease (motor neuron disease)
• Polio
• Polyneuropathies (allergies, poisoning, drug reactions)
• Diabetes
• Sleep disorders
• Depersonalization disorders (feeling detached from body or mental processes)

Symptoms

There are several symptoms related to gradual-onset paralysis or partial paralysis. These include:

• Numbness
• Muscle weakness
• Tingling
• Pins-and-needle sensation
• Burning
• Pricking
• Collapse
• Partial paralysis

Paralysis can affect the whole body or smaller parts, such as the face, jaw, leg, arm, elbow, knee, foot, finger, or wrist. Paralysis generally takes one of two forms, spastic or flaccid. In spastic paralysis the muscles are tight, which can cause arms and legs to be in an abnormal position. Paralysis can also cause flaccid muscles, which hang limp and weak, and the body can look thin and wasted. Some gradual-onset forms of paralysis begin with flaccid muscles, which later become spastic.

Treatment

Treatment depends on the cause of the paralysis. In cases of injury the person is sometimes able to regain some or all control of muscles over time. The majority of stroke victims regain a part of their mobility. Degenerative diseases, however, tend to lead to worsening paralysis.

There is no known cure or treatment for paralysis, but there are treatments for various symptoms. Spastic symptoms are relieved through stress-release and relaxation techniques, and patients are advised to avoid certain positions that might worsen the symptoms. Physical therapy is used to prevent the muscle from wasting away and to strengthen muscles that aren’t paralyzed. Anti-spastic drugs can be taken orally or injected into the fluid around the spinal cord, though drugs are not always needed. When spastic muscles are placing limbs in extreme positions, surgery may be indicated. The newest treatment is Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), which involves electrical stimulation of paralyzed muscles.

The treatment of flaccid paralysis is similar. Attention is paid to positioning the body and physical therapy maintains the muscles. Splints or other mechanisms may be used to support joints. Drugs can sometimes be used to treat the underlying disease, and new surgical techniques involving nerve transplants are expanding rapidly.

If you or a loved one have suffered catastrophic injuries causing paralysis through no fault of your own, contact an experienced personal injury attorney right away.

An Egyptian medical official says six Russian tourists died in a bus accident near a resort town in the Sinai peninsula.

Chief of emergency services of south Sinai, Ibrahim Ali, says five Russian men and one woman died when the bus flipped over late Monday night. There were 15 other foreigners of various nationalities wounded as well.

The bus was 10 miles from the resort town of Dahab on its way from Sharm el-Sheik when it crashed.

The rugged Sinai coast along the Red Sea is dotted with resorts and is a popular vacation destination for tourists from all over the world.

Egypt has a history of serious bus and car crashes because of speeding, careless driving and poor road conditions.

The state of Alabama either contracts with or certifies substance abuse programs throughout the state. If you believe your rights have been violated by a program that either provides services for or has been certified by the state of Alabama, you may contact the Substance Abuse Services Division of the Alabama Department of Mental Health & Mental Retardation (ADMG/MR) for consumer advocacy assistance.  The department has a number of advocates across the state that may be able to help you. Advocates are generally non-adversarial and can provide information and referrals, rights complaint investigations and resolutions, facility compliance monitoring and rights education and training.

If you are receiving services from a drug or alcohol treatment center, you have rights, both legal and personal. These rights include:

- The right to know the cost of care and services you will receive when admitted to a facility.
- The right not to be abused, either physically or mentally or through neglect.
- The right to a safe and humane environment and treatment for your positive self-image and dignity.
- The right not to be restrained or isolated unnecessarily.
- The right to wear your own clothes and to keep your own possessions.
- The right to see visitors, send/receive mail, and use the telephone.
- The right to have records of your treatment kept private.
- The right to practice whatever religious faith you choose.
- The right to be treated as a legally competent adult unless a court has ordered otherwise.
- If you are school-age, the right to a free and appropriate public education.
- The right to file a “writ of habeas corpus” with an attorney of your choice if you feel you are being held in a facility illegally.
- The right to due process, that is, that your rights may not be taken from you without justification.
- The right to quality and individualized treatment.
- The right to participate in your own treatment.
- The right to receive the least restrictive treatment in the least restrictive settings available for your treatment.
- The right to refuse any experimental or research-based treatment.
- The right to treatment and services based on your voluntary, written and informed consent.
- The right to know your rights.

Source: Free Law Advice

One worker is dead and 15 other people injured after a pedestrian bridge collapsed at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Atlanta Fire Capt. Gregory Shinkle says the bridge collapsed just after 9 a.m. Friday. He says scaffolding being used to pour concrete for a new elevated bridge at the garden collapsed.

Emergency crews are on the scene.

The garden is north of downtown.

Rating systems help people decide which restaurants to go to or hotels to stay at. So why not something similar from the federal government for the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes?

Such a simple rating for so complex a task as caring for the elderly is leading to much anxiety in the nursing home industry. Home operators worry about the ramifications for their business if they get one or two stars - when five is the best.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was to let everyone know Thursday just how many stars each home is getting. Already the industry is questioning the validity of the rankings. To operators, the five-star system a great idea whose time has not yet come.

The system “is poorly planned, prematurely implemented and hamhandedly rolled out,” said Larry Minnix, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, an industry trade group.

Federal officials say the rankings will put nursing homes “on the path to improvement” because they know family members will think twice before putting someone in a one-star home.

The ratings are based on state inspections, staffing levels and quality measures, such as the percentage of residents with pressure sores. The nursing homes will receive stars for each of those categories as well as for their overall quality.

Consumer groups like the concept, but they agreed there are some potential problems with the data. For example, the staffing data is self-reported just before state surveys and is widely recognized as unreliable.
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Sixteen people at a seafood business in Bellingham, Wash., have been sent to the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Chief Bill Boyd says they were overcome by fumes Tuesday morning at the Homeport Seafoods cold storage business.

Boyd says the fire department responded to a call at 8 a.m. for one person passed out. When firefighters arrived they found others with symptoms and discovered high levels of carbon monoxide.

The department transported the 16 to St. Joseph hospital. Boyd says others may have gone to the hospital on their own. He says everyone was conscious.

Boyd says investigators were trying to determine the source of the fumes.

Bellingham is about 88 miles north of Seattle.

If you are seeking the services of a Washington Personal Injury Lawyer, Call (425) 893-8989 or (800) 282-4878 toll free.

PTSD symptoms include anxiety, depression, substance abuse, flashbacks (experiencing the event again without wanting to), nightmares and other problems sleeping, avoiding people, places, or things that remind you of the event, difficulty trusting in other people, self-blame, sudden anger, jumpy reactions to loud noises or other surprises, and guilt toward people who survived the event. The wide range of symptoms makes it especially important to get a correct diagnosis from a doctor.

While many people experience trauma immediately after an event, other people do not. It may take months or years for PTSD symptoms to show up, and sometimes the reactions are subtle. Watch how you react to triggers. Triggers can be anything that reminds you of the trauma, including places, noises, certain smells, certain activities, and even the date on the calendar. Once you’ve figured out the triggers, your reactions become more predictable and more easily treated.

Source: Free Law Advice

Cleveland police say they have arrested an 11-year-old boy who shot and wounded his 8-year-old brother while the two were playing “gangster” Friday morning.

Police say the boys were playing with a gun they found in their grandmother’s car.

The 8-year-old is being treated at MetroHealth Medical Center for a gunshot wound to his upper chest. His condition wasn’t immediately available, but police Lt. Thomas Stacho says the wound does not appear to be life-threatening.

He says the 11-year-old is being charged with felonious assault and the grandmother will be charged with failure to secure a deadly weapon.

The boys’ mother, Kimmie Hicks, was sentenced Nov. 17 to four years in prison for beating them with an ax last July.

Federal safety officials say auto fatalities dropped almost 10 percent in 2008 through October.

If the trend holds up for the last two months of the year, highway deaths could reach their lowest level since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says there were 31,110 auto fatalities in the first 10 months of this year. That’s a 9.8 percent decline over the same period in 2007.

The traffic safety administration has been tracking auto fatalities since 1966, when there were more than 50,000 deaths on the highways. The number of deaths peaked in 1972 at 54,589, then generally declined over the next two decades. The total has hovered above 40,000 the past few years.

When the Pinnick family of Joliet decided to take the case of their daughter’s death in a gruesome car crash to a “big league” law firm, they thought Corboy & Demetrio was a reasonable choice.

Corboy & Demetrio is “a premier national law firm (which) represents individuals and their families in serious personal injury and wrongful death cases and is renowned for its achievements in the courtroom,” according to the firm’s Web site.

The site also touts a number of multi-million dollar and “record breaking” verdicts, and the firm is known by many Chicagoans who see and read news stories of the high-profile cases its attorneys handle.

Now, the Pinnick case is tangled in the courts, the Chicago Reader reported, and the family of the woman hasn’t seen a penny of the money they’ve been counting on to help raise the dead woman’s two children and pay medical expenses.

The case started Sept. 2, 1995, when Melissa Pinnick was killed near Crown Point, Ind.  The car she was riding in, along with her two small children and other relatives, was struck by a Cadillac on Interstate 65.

Cortland Pinnick, then 6, saw his mother’s violent death as she was nearly decapitated by the impact, the Reader reported. He was sitting in the back seat of the vehicle next to his then 21-month-old sister, who was seriously injured in the crash.

Corboy & Demetrio agreed to take the case. The firm’s investigation, however, presented attorneys with fewer payout options than had originally been expected, according to the Reader.  While attorneys assigned to the case did pursue a lawsuit against the driver of the Cadillac, they found that they didn’t have enough evidence to go after the rental car company that provided the car the Pinnicks were in or the car manufacturer.

“With no big corporate defendant the case had become small potatoes,” James L. Merriner wrote in the Reader article.

The Pinnicks sued Corboy & Demetrio for failing to preserve evidence after the rented Mitsubishi Diamante the family was in disappeared after being towed from the crash scene.

Eventually, managing partner Robert Bingle told the Pinnick family “that we felt it was in everyone’s best interest that at this point that we step out of the case and they hire new attorneys to take over.”

The case bounced around in the courts and the Pinnick family now feels that they aren’t getting a fair shake in the Illinois Supreme Court.

According to Merriner, there are questions being raised about the connections between Supreme Court justices and the law firm in question.

In fact, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday that, “Four Illinois Supreme Court justices have been asked to withdraw from (the case) because the justices have gotten political contributions from the Chicago firm’s attorneys.”

Source: NBC Chicago

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