Football spinal cord injury question

[Penguin]

This is the way I understand things. If a football player is seriously injured and does a thumbs up, it only means that the spinal cord was not severed. If the injury is serious enough, the swelling will kill the spinal cord within the hour (the "golden" hour).


I'm talking about the most common paralyzing football injuries.


My co-workers and I got into a big argument about it. So which is it? Is it the actual injury that paralyzes a player, or is it the swelling that happens afterwards?

[Okla-homey]

This is the way I understand things. If a football player is seriously injured and does a thumbs up, it only means that the spinal cord was not severed. If the injury is serious enough, the swelling will kill the spinal cord within the hour (the "golden" hour).


I'm talking about the most common paralyzing football injuries.


My co-workers and I got into a big argument about it. So which is it? Is it the actual injury that paralyzes a player, or is it the swelling that happens afterwards?

I'm pretty sure that either actual severing of the cord OR swelling around the spine can lead to paralysis. The loss of function is dependent on the site of the spinal injury. The higher the injury, the more you lose. IOW, C-spine injuries/swelling often result in quadraplegia. Lower injuries like on the lumbar spine can result in loss of the legs and control of the bladder and bowels.



http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/8991/xxspinalmapfw1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[AlbqSooner]

The ability to move the arms indicates an intact spinal cord and peripheral nerves emanating from the cervical spine. ( Neck region). An inability to move the upper arms does not necessarily mean there is a severed cord. Rather, there can be impingement on the nerves which exit on either side of the spine to innervate the arms. If there is loss of sensory or motor function of certain parts of the arms/hands, it will tell medical personnel which set of nerves is injured.