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Disc, Facet, and Nerve Injuries
Between each pair of vertebrae sits an intervertebral disc — a tough outer ring around a softer center — acting as a shock absorber. Behind them, small facet joints guide movement. Nerve roots exit the spinal column through openings alongside both.
Truck crash forces damage these structures in recognisable ways. A bulging disc extends beyond its normal boundary. A herniated disc ruptures, allowing inner material to escape and press on a nerve root. Facet joint injury produces localised pain that worsens with extension. Radiculopathy is the result when a nerve root is compressed or inflamed: pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness traveling down an arm or leg.
None of these involve the spinal cord itself — that is a separate and more catastrophic category. But they are frequently permanent, frequently surgical, and frequently disabling for work that involves lifting, sitting, or standing.
How Treatment Usually Escalates
Spinal injury care follows a fairly standard progression, and understanding it matters because insurers read each step as evidence about severity:
- Conservative care — rest, anti-inflammatories, physical therapy, and activity modification, typically over weeks to months.
- Diagnostic imaging — MRI rather than X-ray, since discs and nerves are soft tissue.
- Interventional pain management — epidural steroid injections or facet blocks, both therapeutic and diagnostic, since a response localises the pain source.
- Surgical consultation where symptoms persist or neurological deficit develops.
- Surgery — discectomy, laminectomy, or fusion, depending on the injury.
- Post-surgical rehabilitation, and in some cases revision surgery or adjacent-segment problems years later.
Completing this sequence matters clinically and evidentially. Declining injections or surgery is a legitimate personal choice, but a carrier will characterize it as evidence the pain was tolerable. Conversely, a gap between steps is characterized as recovery.
Shiner Law Group, P.A.
Founded by David I. Shiner, Esq. · AV Preeminent® rated · Florida Bar member since 2002
Shiner Law Group was founded by David I. Shiner, Esq., a Nova Southeastern University law graduate, a member of The Florida Bar since 2002, and AV Preeminent® rated by Martindale-Hubbell. The firm represents injured people across Florida from offices in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Wellington, and Belle Glade, and handles truck accident cases on contingency: free consultations, and no fee unless there is a recovery.
The Degenerative-Changes Defense
This is the argument you should expect, and it is worth understanding before it arrives.
Nearly every adult spine shows some degenerative change on MRI. Disc desiccation, mild bulging, and osteophyte formation are common findings in people with no symptoms at all. A radiologist reporting your post-crash MRI will describe what they see, including degenerative findings, because that is what the report is for.
The carrier’s insurer will seize on that language and argue the findings pre-date the crash. The answer is rarely that no degeneration existed. It is that asymptomatic degeneration became symptomatic after a specific traumatic event — and Florida law generally holds a defendant responsible for aggravating a pre-existing condition, not only for creating a new one.
What defeats the argument in practice: prior medical records showing no comparable complaints, a clear temporal relationship between the crash and symptom onset, imaging findings consistent with acute trauma, and a treating physician’s opinion on causation. This is why preserving pre-crash records helps rather than hurts.
Nearly every adult spine shows something on MRI. That is not the question.
Shiner Law Group offers free case reviews for Florida back and neck injury victims — 24/7, no fee unless you win.
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Florida Rules That Apply
| Rule | Effect on a back or neck claim |
|---|---|
| PIP and the 14-day rule | Fla. Stat. § 627.736 provides $10,000 if treatment begins within 14 days — typically exhausted by imaging and early therapy alone. |
| Permanent injury threshold | Fla. Stat. § 627.737 generally requires permanent injury for non-economic damages. Herniation with radiculopathy, or a fusion, usually supports it; a resolving bulge may not. |
| Aggravation of pre-existing conditions | Florida generally holds a defendant responsible for worsening an existing condition, which is the direct answer to the degenerative-changes defense. |
| Comparative negligence and deadline | Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and two years for claims arising after March 24, 2023. |
What to Do After a Back or Neck Injury
- Get medical care immediately — Florida’s PIP statute (Fla. Stat. § 627.736) requires initial treatment within 14 days to access your $10,000 in benefits.
- Describe radiating symptoms precisely — where numbness or weakness travels, since that localises nerve involvement.
- Complete the treatment sequence without gaps, and have any decision to decline a procedure documented with your reasons.
- Gather pre-crash medical records establishing your baseline. They help far more often than they hurt.
- Document functional loss — what you can no longer lift, how long you can sit or stand, what work tasks are now impossible.
- Do not settle before the treatment path is clear, particularly if surgery remains a possibility.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the trucking company’s insurer before speaking with an attorney.
See What to Do After a Truck Accident for the full sequence.