Opinion ID: 2116711
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Heading: the automobile accident and injuries

Text: The Collision. On the morning of August 29, 1985, Joyce Renne, in her car en route to physical therapy at St. Elizabeth Community Health Center in Lincoln, was struck from the rear by Moser in his pickup, while Renne was stopped and waiting for left-turning traffic to clear ahead of her. The impact hurled Renne against her car's steering wheel. An ambulance, summoned to the scene, transported Renne to the emergency room at St. Elizabeth. Discharge from the Emergency Room. At St. Elizabeth's emergency room, a physician examined Joyce Renne. During the examination, Renne told emergency room staff that she had a history of pain, weakness, and numbness in her left shoulder which she believed to be a thoracic outlet syndrome. The thoracic outlet is a choke point or a bottleneck for vessels and tissue on their course from the human trunk into the arm. A thoracic outlet syndrome results from compression of tissue within the interior and constricted opening under the arm at the first rib and the rib's juncture with the shoulder, shoulder blade, and collarbone, impinging on arteries and veins that leave the chest area and enter the arm and also impinging on nerves running from the head, down the trunk, and into the arm. Reduction of the thoracic outlet causes pressure on the arteries and nerves at the site indicated and may result in poor muscle control, arm pain, weakness in the hand, and numbness in some fingers. Consequently, thoracic outlet syndrome is compression of the brachial plexus nerve trunks, the major nerve roots passing through the shoulder to the arms, and is characterized by pain in the arms, paresthesia of the fingers, vasomotor symptoms, and weakness of the muscles in the hands. See The Sloane-Dorland Annotated Medical-Legal Dictionary 697 (1987). X rays were taken, but disclosed nothing abnormal about Renne's condition. Three hours later, Renne was discharged from the emergency room. Although she missed some work, Renne returned to full employment in late September 1985 at the same pay rate that she was receiving at the time of the automobile accident. However, Renne still experienced numbness in her left arm, popping in her jaw, and ringing in her ears.