Spinal cord injuries often result from sudden trauma to the neck or back. Common causes include vehicle collisions, slip-and-fall accidents, construction incidents, and unsafe premises. Defective products, sports injuries, and medical errors can also cause spinal cord injuries. In many cases, the injury could have been prevented if another person or business had acted with reasonable care. A Monmouth County personal injury lawyer can investigate how the injury occurred, identify potentially responsible parties, and pursue compensation for medical treatment, rehabilitation, lost income, and other losses. The Cassidy Law Firm LLC represents injured people throughout New Jersey from its Shrewsbury office.
Quick Answer: The Leading Causes by the Numbers
The most detailed current breakdown of causes comes from a federally funded national spinal cord injury database that 31 spinal cord injury centers around the country have contributed to since 1973. Its 2026 data sheet on causes, covering traumatic injuries between 2015 and 2025, ranks them this way, with each figure a share of all cases:
Vehicular crashes, 36.88 percent, with automobiles alone accounting for 24.06 percent
Falls, 33.07 percent, led by falls on the same level and falls on stairs
Acts of violence, 14.87 percent, nearly all of it gunshot wounds at 13.82 percent
Sports and recreation, 7.46 percent, with diving the single largest activity at 3.30 percent
Other causes, 7.72 percent, including medical and surgical complications at 3.67 percent
Those figures are national rather than New Jersey specific, cover traumatic injuries only, and capture only people treated at participating centers. They remain the best available picture of how these injuries happen, and two of the rankings are not what most people expect.
Vehicle Crashes Rank First, and Cars Are Only Part of It
Roughly a quarter of all traumatic spinal cord injuries trace to automobile crashes, a category that covers cars, trucks, and buses. Motorcycles add another 6.97 percent and bicycles 3.08 percent. That means about one case in ten involves a rider with no vehicle structure around them at all. A rear-impact crash can fracture a cervical vertebra in a motorcyclist thrown from the seat. The physics change from vehicle to vehicle. The legal question does not.
Liability still turns on ordinary negligence. Speed, following distance, failure to yield, distraction, and impairment are the recurring themes across these categories.
Falls Are Second, and the Biggest Fall Risks Are Not Ladders and Scaffolding
Most people picture a fall from a ladder or a scaffold. The federal breakdown ranks fall types very differently:
Falls on the same level, meaning slipping, tripping, and stumbling, at 8.34 percent
Falls on and from stairs and steps, at 5.63 percent
Falls from, out of, or through a building or structure, at 3.82 percent
Falls on and from a ladder, at 2.12 percent
Falls caused by ice and snow, at 0.75 percent
Falls on and from scaffolding, at 0.52 percent
A same level fall is roughly four times as common as a ladder fall and about sixteen times as common as a scaffolding fall. That reordering points the legal analysis toward premises liability questions about walking surfaces, stair geometry, handrails, lighting, and snow and ice removal, not only the construction safety questions people expect.
When a fall happens on the job, the injured worker may have a claim for workplace injury benefits running alongside any claim against a negligent third party.
Diving Causes Far More Spinal Injuries Than Contact Sports
Sports and recreation account for 7.46 percent of cases, and the distribution inside that category is lopsided. Diving alone accounts for 3.30 percent, roughly seven times what football, gymnastics, wrestling, field sports, baseball and softball, and basketball and volleyball produce combined. Snow skiing, at 0.90 percent, ranks second.
For a shore county, diving is the number that deserves attention. Whether the dive was off a dock, a boat, or into a backyard pool, these cases often turn on water depth, whether a depth change was marked, and whether anyone was supervising. Those are premises questions, not equipment questions.
Violence and Medical Complications Fill Out the List
Acts of violence account for 14.87 percent of traumatic spinal cord injuries, and gunshot wounds are nearly all of that figure at 13.82 percent of all cases. When an assault occurs on property that lacked reasonable security, the owner may share responsibility with the person who pulled the trigger.
Medical and surgical complications account for 3.67 percent. Those cases run on a separate legal track. A claim that a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, or a hospital caused the injury is a malpractice claim with its own expert requirements and procedural rules, and it should be evaluated on its own terms rather than folded into an accident claim.
How New Jersey Law Turns a Cause Into a Claim
Cause does two jobs in a New Jersey injury case. It identifies who may be responsible, and it determines which deadline applies.
On responsibility, N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1 provides that your own negligence does not bar recovery so long as it is not greater than the negligence of the person you seek recovery from, or not greater than the combined negligence of the people you seek recovery from. Any damages you are awarded are then reduced by the percentage of negligence attributed to you. On a claim valued at a hypothetical $2 million, a 20 percent fault finding removes $400,000 from the recovery.
On deadlines, cause changes what you have to file and when:
Against a private driver, property owner, or business, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 generally requires the action to be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues
Against the State of New Jersey, its departments, or its agencies, the State instructs claimants to file a claim within 90 days of the occurrence, incident, accident, date of discovery, or accrual date
Against a county, municipality, city, or township, the State directs claimants to file with that entity directly rather than with the State, and does not state the deadline for those claims
Against NJ Transit, the State directs that a claim arising from a collision involving a public bus or train be filed with NJ Transit directly
The 90 day step is an early notice requirement, not a replacement for the lawsuit deadline. The State of New Jersey's published claim filing instructions say the claim form satisfies the Title 59 notice requirement only, and that complaints and other pleadings must still be filed under the court rules.
The 90 day notice requirement is not unique to the State. Under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, a claim against any public entity, including a county, municipality, or school district, must be presented within 90 days of the date it accrues, and a lawsuit against a public entity generally must be filed within two years. That is why a county or municipal claim should be treated as just as urgent as a claim against the State, even though the State's page does not list a deadline for it.
That notice window reaches injuries on state highways, in state buildings, and at state facilities. If more than 90 days have already passed, the same instructions direct claimants to submit the claim form anyway and then ask the court for permission to file a late claim, so a missed window is worth asking about rather than writing off. Note too that N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 opens with the phrase except as otherwise provided by law, so two years is the general rule rather than a universal one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common cause of traumatic spinal cord injuries?
Vehicular crashes rank first among traumatic spinal cord injuries. In the national data covering 2015 through 2025 they account for 36.88 percent of cases, with automobile crashes alone at 24.06 percent. Falls rank second at 33.07 percent, and together the two categories cause close to 70 percent of cases.
How long do I have to file a spinal cord injury claim in New Jersey?
Against a private party, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 generally allows two years from the date the cause of action accrues. A claim against a public entity carries an additional and much earlier step, because the State of New Jersey instructs claimants to file a claim within 90 days of the occurrence. That notice filing does not replace the deadline for the lawsuit itself, and because the two year statute begins with an exception clause, confirm the deadlines for your specific claim rather than assuming them.
Can I recover if I was partly at fault for the accident?
In most situations, yes. Under N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1, contributory negligence does not bar recovery so long as your negligence is not greater than that of the party you seek recovery from, or than the combined negligence of the parties you seek recovery from. Your award is then reduced by your percentage of fault.
Talk With a Monmouth County Injury Attorney About How Your Injury Happened
We have represented injured people in Shrewsbury and throughout Monmouth County for decades. Our founder, Harold J. Cassidy, was designated a Certified Civil Trial Attorney by the New Jersey Supreme Court. These cases are won and lost on details that are easiest to preserve early: the surface someone fell on, the sight line at an intersection, the water depth at a dock, the maintenance record nobody has requested yet.
We offer free consultations. Contact our office to talk through what happened and which deadline applies to it.