Adjusting to Your New Life After a Traumatic Amputation

Over 2 million Americans have lost one or more of their limbs. Diseases such as diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, and cancer cause the majority of these amputations. However, accidents account for 45% of them. Unfortunately, approximately 185,000 U.S. residents must undergo amputation every year. By definition, amputation means the surgical or traumatic separation of an appendage or limb from your body. Find out how an amputation injury lawyer can help you receive the compensation you deserve if you’ve suffered a life-altering accident.

Traumatic Amputation Causes

While any kind of serious accident or injury can result in the necessity of amputation, the most common causes include the following:

• Traffic accidents, especially those involving motorcycles, bicycles or pedestrians
• Workplace accidents, especially if you are a construction or factory worker
• Agricultural and lawn care accidents involving tractors, lawnmowers, etc.
• Firearm, explosion, or fireworks accidents
• Electrocution accidents
• Ring traction accidents, where the ring on your finger becomes caught on something and pulls your finger off
• Building and car door accidents

By age group, the breakdown of traumatic amputations per cause is as follows:

• Children: caught between mechanisms or doors (16.3%); machinery accidents (15.6%); motor vehicle accidents (8%); firearm accidents (6.1%); off-road vehicle accidents (6.1%)
• Adults: motor vehicle accidents (43%); industrial accidents (26%); motorcycle accidents (21%); other types of accidents (10%)
• Senior citizens: saw accidents (45%); food processor and other small appliance accidents (32%); caught-between mechanisms, doors (10%); lawnmower accidents (10%); snowblower accidents (3%)

Sobering Amputation Injury Statistics

Losing part of a limb is a devastating, life-altering event. Nearly 70% of traumatic amputations involve the upper limb, with partial hand amputations, including the loss of a thumb or fingers, being the most common. Each year, over 61,000 people in the U.S. experience this type of amputation, followed closely by arm amputations.

For lower-limb amputations, the Amputee Coalition of America reports over 185,000 cases annually, with below-the-knee amputations as the most common. Men account for nearly 80% of these, and unfortunately, about 22% of lower-limb amputation patients require readmission within 30 days due to complications.

Amputations affect all age groups, with 60% occurring in people between 21 and 64, while children and youths under 21 make up just 10%. Lawnmower accidents alone lead to around 600 childhood amputations each year. The manufacturing sector sees the most workplace amputations, accounting for 57% of cases, and around 30% of amputation survivors face anxiety or depression as they adjust to their new reality.

In terms of health care costs related to amputations, amputees average $509,275 in lifetime health care costs. Private and public insurance companies pay an estimated $12 billion in amputation claims each year. In 2013 alone, U.S. hospital charges for amputation patients totaled $8.7 billion.

Traumatic amputation injury accidents have a mortality rate of approximately 15%. The biggest cause of amputation death is exsanguination. i.e., uncontrolled hemorrhaging. This is where the victim “bleeds out” from his or her wound before emergency medical intervention can take place.

Experts project that the U.S. amputee population will more than double by 2050, resulting in 3.6 million amputees.

Functional and Life Outcomes

The amount of functionality you will regain after your amputation depends not only on the number of limbs you lost but also on the level at which you lost them. In general, amputees who have lost part or all of an arm, especially if it was their dominant arm and hand, report a greater loss of functionality and, therefore, quality of life than amputees whose accidents necessitated a below-knee amputation. A double below-knee amputation or amputation of both legs at any level, however, results in a significantly less amount of functionality.

If you recently underwent a lower-extremity amputation, you can expect to spend several months in a wheelchair while your stump or stumps heal and begin shrinking. Assuming your residual lower limbs are long enough to allow the fitting of a prosthesis, you will require significant physical therapy to learn how to balance and walk. Unfortunately, even with the advances in prosthesis design, many amputees find it necessary to abandon them after using them for an average of seven years. The most common reasons include: the residual limbs being too short for comfortable prosthesis usage; persistent pain when using the prosthesis; the prosthesis being too heavy, and using the prosthesis presenting too much of a hassle.

Speaking of pain, the vast majority of amputees, some say as high as 95% of them, report experiencing chronic pain even years after the amputation. This pain can take a variety of forms. This includes phantom limb pain, i.e., pain in your missing limbs, residual limb pain, contralateral limb pain, and back pain

Why You Need an Experienced Amputation Injury Lawyer

Given the fact that you face the possibility of a lifetime of pain and decreased functionality after your amputation, not to mention ongoing medical and rehabilitation expenses, suing the person or entity whose negligence or wrongdoing caused the accident that necessitated your amputation just makes sense. After all, you didn’t ask to become an amputee. The person or entity responsible for your situation should be held accountable for it.

An experienced personal injury attorney knowledgeable in amputation injuries can get you the compensation you deserve, including both economic and non-economic damages. Your economic damages consist of such things as your medical expenses, both past and future, rehabilitation expenses, both past and future, physical therapy expenses, both past and future, lost wages, both past and future, and your lost earning capacity. Your noneconomic damages consist of such things as your pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, your disability itself, and loss of enjoyment of life because of your disability

Work With an Experienced Local Lawyer

Submit a request online today or call us at (866) 345-6784 to get in touch with an experienced amputation injury lawyer in your area.

About the Author

Aaron is a professional legal writer with a B.S. in English Education from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. He has written, published, and edited thousands of legal articles for RequestLegalHelp, which has connected over 5 million people to legal help in the United States.

With over five years of experience writing thousands of legal articles for law firms across the U.S. and Canada, Aaron specializes in covering federal, state, and city-level legal issues ranging from auto accidents to wrongful terminations. Contact Aaron at [email protected] for article suggestions, collaborations, or inquiries.