When a car crash results in a spinal cord injury, you can expect your total costs to be significant. Even incomplete spinal cord injuries will cause tens of thousands of dollars of medical care needs right after a crash and will generate ongoing medical support costs for the rest of someone’s life.
There are also lost wages to consider, as many people need to take a leave of absence or change professions because of a spinal cord injury. Even those who continue the same profession after their injury may lose income due to frequent medical appointments.
While those expenses may comprise the majority of the losses people experience after a spinal cord injury, there is another source of expenses people frequently overlook. Updating your daily life to accommodate a spinal cord injury and the wheelchair it may necessitate can also be a significant expense.
Making a home accessible is expensive
Depending on whether you live in your own home or rent, you may have to cover some or possibly all of the costs to make your home accessible yourself. Landlords may have to make some updates, although the less necessary ones may fall to you to fund.
If you own your own home, you will typically need to cover those costs yourself. People can easily spend $20,000, sometimes more, adding a ramp, remodeling their bathroom and adjusting living spaces to make them accessible for someone in a wheelchair.
Transportation needs will also change
Sometimes, those in wheelchairs do not want to drive anymore. In those situations, their household will likely need a wheelchair-accessible vehicle that will make leaving the home less of an arduous process for the family.
Altering a vehicle to make it wheelchair accessible can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and new wheelchair-accessible vans cost far more than a standard vehicle. It can cost even more to update a vehicle for leg-free controls. Such changes will be necessary to ensure the safe transportation of someone adjusting to a spinal cord injury.
Those recovering from a recent spinal cord injury need to consider secondary expenses, not just medical bills, when they start pursuing compensation. Recognizing how much a spinal cord injury can cost you will help you ask for appropriate levels of financial support after your injury.
