After her crash, Chrisley says she went in and out of consciousness, kept screaming for help, and cars just continued to pass. “It felt like I had been laying there for at least 20 minutes begging for help, and then a man stopped and ran over to me and got the police my way,” she said. “I have no idea who you are but thank you…I could never repay you for your act of kindness.”

Now, Chrisley says she’s focusing on recovery: “The next month or so, I will be recovering from a broken [vertebra] which has caused numbness in my hands and fingers and pain all throughout my neck, back, and shoulders.”

Justin J. Park, M.D., a board certified orthopedic spine surgeon with The Maryland Spine Center at Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center, tells SELF that a broken vertebra (or multiple broken vertebrae) is a common injury in elderly patients, often via compression fractures in the middle or lower spine that can happen when a person lifts something heavy or falls. In younger patients, the injury is much less common, he says.

Barry Ceverha, M.D., a neurosurgeon and medical director of the operative program at the Center for Spine Health at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, tells SELF that in young people, broken vertebrae are “almost always caused by a traumatic injury,” like a surfing accident or a car crash. Santhosh Thomas, D.O., medical director of the Center for Spine Health at the Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF that seat belt injuries in particular can also lead to vertebrae fractures.

Todd Wetzel, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon and president of the North American Spine Society, tells SELF that it’s common practice for patients with a suspected cervical spine injury (an injury to the neck region of the spine) to wear a collar like the one Chrisley was photographed in. It helps to stabilize the spine, which might be the only treatment necessary depending on the case, Wetzel says. Doctors may also recommend that someone wear a halo ring (à la Regina George after her bus accident) to keep their head and neck from moving, but it ultimately depends on the nature of the break, Ceverha says. In general, people with a vertebra fracture are typically monitored and given oral pain medication, Thomas says.

Although localized pain is the most common and major symptom of a broken vertebra, Park says, the injury may also affect a person’s nerves, which can lead to pain, numbness, or tingling down an extremity. For cervical spine fractures, people typically have severe neck pain that can radiate to the middle of their back or arms, Wetzel says. “If a part of the bone is actually pressing on the spinal cord, a serious neurological injury, such as weakness or paralysis, can result,” he says, noting that surgery is typically required in those cases. However, Park says, the type of injury that requires surgery is less common than the kind doctors can treat with a brace.

Luckily, most people with cervical spine fractures that can be treated with a collar will heal completely with very few long-term consequences, if any. “Some patients may experience early disc degeneration [changes in the spinal discs between vertebrae, which can cause lower back and neck pain], but this is a comparatively slight risk compared to normal aging,” which results in disc degeneration anyway, Wetzel says.

Recovery from a vertebra fracture varies depending on a person’s age and the actual type of injury, but Park says that the vast majority of people will heal in two to four months.