Consider a sc veteran that has chronic pain in his hips. The veteran is riding his motorcycle, there is a bump and the motorcycle has small loss of stability for a second and concomitantly the bump causes the veteran a very sharp pain in his hip which then makes the veteran to complete loose control and to fall from his motorcycle and ended up involved in a serious accident: and the veteran has a serious fracture in his arm (needing surgery, etc).

How hard is for the veteran to prove that the accident and its consequences (injury) is related to his hip disability (pain)?. And how hard is it for the VA to prove that it is not related to his hip disability?

tk

Sounds like a HUGE stretch to me. If a vet has such hip problems perhaps the VA would say they shouldn't be on the bike in the first place?? But since it's only "hypothetical" it's not a big deal.....right??

I think it would be hard to get SC'ed for this because the VA is going to say that if you have a hip injury what the heck are you doing riding a motorcycle. Also, you have to demonstrate that it was the hip injury that caused the wreck and not some other factor. Now if you were walking in your house and your hip gave out and you fell and broke your leg you might have a claim because I can see a doctor saying the broken leg was a consequence of hip giving out and causing the fall. Even in that case you probably have a fight on your hands.

glad this is hypothetical, ur chances are as good as winning the next multi state lottery.

ausgmblr

Even if you could prove that the accident was related to the hip..........what would the VA do about it?
As far as the VA taking care of the arm injury........if the veteran is SC'd, then it would depend upon his disability rating....but most probably, the VA would take care of him if he was injured.............hypothetically. But, connecting the accident to hip pain to get the arm service connected or secondarily connected..............ooooooooops, I'm sorry, I just ran outta beer, I'll be right back............okay, now what WAS the question....I coulda sworn that I heard somebody ask if their lack of motorcycle riding ability could be connected to their military service?

Right, it's hypothetical! But I know about an analogous case, also involving a motorcycle accident (not in function of a hip disability, and not a VA case). If someone falls from the stairwell in function of bad balance related to a leg disability and break his/her neck for instance; wouldn't the VA have to(assuming that the VA does the right thing which is rare) consider the broken neck secondary to the leg disability. At first I would imagine that the stairwell case and the motorcycle case were analogous. But I understand the point that riding a motorcycle with such a hip disability could be consider irresponsible.

I have seen cases where service conected conditions have caused veterans to fall and they were able to file claims.
I have also seen cases where Veterans were taking Metropolol and their heart rates were dropping too low and the Vets were passing out while opererating vehicles and filing claims.

Look your situation up in the BVA files at the BVA website. You may be suprised.

J

I have seen a legal case (not VA related) of an employee who had a disability which caused him an accident, sued the company for which he worked. And ended up wining hundreds of thousands of dollars. I believe that in law it is called the "benefit of doubt", one could say that it is as likely that the accident was caused by the "hip disability" as it could be in function of "riding ability" for instance and that the judge would then decide in favor of the litigant.

That's the civilian world...and IMO that's a frivilous lawsuit.....this is the VA world...whole different set of rules. Is someone you know planning this?

I have seen a VA case of a veteran who lost one arm. The veteran was performing some task that did require both arms, in the veteran's mind he would sometimes act spontaneously at moments (seconds) as if he still had both arms. In that particular case the absence of one arm (the veteran very often at instants would feel and act as if he had both) and the fact that the veteran acted as if he had both arms when performing that particular task (don't remember the task now) the veteran got involved in a serious accident and broke his leg. I believe that the veteran was granted service connected at the BVA level.

It also related to my case in a sense because I have a serious balance issues specially when going up and downstairs. And at all my C&P exams for my left leg condition my C&P examiner proactively always asked me if I had balance issue in function of my left leg condition and if such balance issue could cause another accident (feeling of pending disaster, etc).

On second thought the bump caused you to lose control and not the SC condition.
Now if you were scooting around on the hog and you had a heart attack and were SC for heart disease and wound up with a bad road rash and broken bones, That would be different.

The condition must directly cause you injury. I belive that is how the reg states it.

J

Not a snowball's chance in hell. Sorry. If sc'd hips caused a vet to fall down and break an arm, it would be easy to get a secondary sc, though.

...

RG,

I'm glad this is a hypothetical situation because you and LarryJ got me ROFLMAO...

No, it is not about me, and not about anybody that I know. I got inspired to use the examples of a motorcycle because I ride them and I know that it requires dexterity and responsibility to ride them and because I was reading an article about an officer who got involved in a serious motorcycle accident off base. The officer in her 20s did not have any type of disability known previous to the accident.(the absence was mostly in function of the lack of riding ability or circumstances) The officer then broke both legs, one arm, etc; but now she is doing just fine. She was discharge from the military, and receives a full pension.

But the point is that it could have anything, not only a motorcycle. Any type of machinery, even a car. The fact is when you have a disability and impairment many aspects of your life can be much more difficult and risk than what it would be otherwise.

Yea, but suppose that the bump causes a flare up (pain), which then dramatically contributes to the lack of control and the fall.

You do whatever you think you have to do. Personally I think your chances are better if you buy a powerball ticket.

J

By-the-way, that picture of me, the one up there in the upper left corner, yeah, that one. I'm sittin on my FLHTCU (my GEEZER-GLIDE).
I can't ride anymore....that picture was taken by my son just before I left on my last ride. It was hard giving it up. I'd had a motorcycle of some shape or another since 1962. I figure I've got around 700,000 miles on one, probably more, lots more.

Ride 'em like ya stole 'em!

Benefit of doubt rule? Whoever evaluates this claim will be looking for the usual "more likely than not" well what does he have to loose? We all have put in claims with IMO/IME and have been denied. It does not always mean how well reasearched or documented a claim is, but who is the rater. Also what may factor in to the analysis is how much are they after their "bonus!"

Pain is immaterial, and there is no reliable way to measure pain. If you say that you have pain in function of a particular disability (especially if it is known that a proportion people who have such disability have chronic pain) the VA simply have to accept what you say as true. For instance when you have C&P exam and the examiner ask about your pain level in a scale of 0 to 10, they have to accept whatever you say as true and fact.

There is no way that in a fraction of second when you were riding a bike (or any other machinery for that matter) and had a flare up (especially considering you have a hip disability and a history of pain already) in function of a bump which eventually makes you lose your control and get involved in an accident that anybody but you could say if it was related to pain or not. And the VA can not make the assumption that you are lying especially you have liability in function of a disability and a history of pain. So on the occasion of your C&P exam, most likely (especially considering the "Benefit of Doubt"), the C&P examiner (not the rater) would write down that "it is as likely as not that the accident was caused by a flare up" and the C&P examiner would then indicate that the broken arm is secondary to the hip disability. The rater would only have to apply whatever disability code is applicable to the arm injury/disability.

All the assumptions that I make above are based on the idea the system works (the C&P know your file, know the rules, etc). I agree with you that it really depends on who the rater is as well. I have had that type of experience with my GERD claim where the rater basically ignored almost all my medical records and even ignored (or maybe did not understand the terminology: pyrosis = heartburn, for instace) the C&P examiner findings. So on my NOD I did make sure that I state things as the following: "…as is indicated and stated by Dr. X on page #3 of my medical records as follows: "the patient has intermittent epigastric pressure and pain" it is seems clear that…".

A FLHTCU is a great and big bike! I have two bikes that I used to get around in town, they have low displacement and thus don't reach high speed. One is a 2-stroke 50cc (2 stroke turbo with minarelli based engine; it is a big one for a scooter); the other one is a 4-stroke 150cc (Honda engine, since it is over 50cc it is classified as a motorcycle) and its max speed is around 65mph. So they are not the type of bikes that one would use in highway. I definitely hate the weather here in MI, it is so cold and the ice conditions on the rode mean I can not ride them for almost half of the year.

[quote name='tk3000' date='Jan 24 2009, 07:52 PM' post='126413']
I have seen a VA case of a veteran who lost one arm. The veteran was performing some task that did require both arms....... In that particular case the absence of one arm........ and the fact that the veteran acted as if he had both arms when performing that particular task (don't remember the task now) the veteran got involved in a serious accident and broke his leg. I believe that the veteran was granted service connected at the BVA level. [quote name='tk3000' date='Jan 24 2009, 07:52 PM' post='126413']

I remember reading the BVA decision on the case about 10 years ago. The veteran had one of his arms amputated due to an injury stemming from combat in Vietnam. The veteran was raking leaves and fell down breaking his arm opposite of the amputated one. Because normally a person has the use of both arms/hands to break the fail, it would have been less serious- however in this case because the veteran had only one arm and the pressure of the fail itself broke his only arm. So the rating legalitly question was- if the veteran had use of both arms would the same result happen? The ultimate answer was most likely not- so serivce connection was granted as secondary to S/C amputated arm.