Sorry if this is a weird question, but I don't know of any other place to ask.

I'm working on a character, and it's important that she can't walk, so I have a few questions about hamstringing:

1. Were the legs entirely dead weight, or useless only from the cut downward?

2. Could the person sit up straight?

3. Lastly, is there any modern way to fix it, or is a wheelchair nessecary?

As to whether she could sit up, I can't think of any reason why not. People who've had their legs completely amputated are capable of sitting.

By my understanding of hamstringing, her legs wouldn't be paralyzed. She wouldn't be able to stand or walk, but she'd still be able to move her feet and toes. Hamstringing is just cutting the tendons in the thighs. Unless it was a superdeep cut, I don't think it would sever the nerves to the lower part of the legs.

Edit: I meant, is it possible to have spinal injuries where your legs aren't paralyzed, just useless? Tired, sorry.

Spinal injury paralysis doesn't make limbs stiff or anything like that, it just means that they don't move on their own. There can be injuries that limit but do not entirely sever nervous connections, thus she might have an injury that meant she couldn't walk but could still move her legs some. There are also injuries that cause spurious movement, though I take it that wouldn't be what you're looking for either.

James is right about hamstringing. It doesn't even make it impossible to walk or even run (though you won't run very fast). It only affects the use of the specific muscles linked to the severed tendon. You can even still flex those muscles, it just doesn't bend your knee when you do so.

The results of spinal cord damage vary with what connections have been broken. The most important factor is where along the length of the cord the injury occurred. This is why a broken neck is usually fatal; it's not the damage to the vertebrae per se but the serious risk of damaging the pathways that regulate breathing even if the cord was not initially harmed. A very low injury might paralyze only the legs, or (I believe) even just part of the legs, though in the latter case it would technically not be the spinal cord that was damaged (part of the vertebral column is occupied solely by nerves leaving the cord).

The spinal cord is also not a single unit. Although most natural injuries damage the whole cord, motor and sensory pathways occupy separate vertical "strands", so that one can be paralyzed but still have feeling, or vice versa, if for some reason both tracts are not damaged.

Need anything more specific? If I don't know, I can look it up, or try to. (I am working on my Biology Masters.)

And yes it is possible to reattach the tendons, however, tendon’s don’t heal up very well, so it would definitely take a significant time. And if the tendon has atrophied then the tendon would be pulled up into the leg, and it would take time to get to it, and get it stretched out again.

Ok… if it is important that this happens after she has developed normally, and learned how to walk, then a spinal injury would do that.

If you are going for something that will temporarily cause this to happen, then you can have a problem with the pelvis, such as it being crushed. – which can happen from something like a car crash, or a tree falling on your character. Another option would be something happening to the hips/pelvis where they aren’t working properly, either they are rotated, and all the nerves, etc are affected. This could be interesting in a mystery actually, since the effects aren’t consistent, so although she might normally not be able to user her legs to walk, sometimes she could. (happens to me, but in reverse, and after years of therapy/chiropractors.) – but that isn’t really where you seem to be going.

If it isn’t important, then spinal bifida in which the lower part of the spinal cord never develops, then that would get the efforts you have posted that you want. But it currently isn’t correctable. So a wheel chair is the way for your character to move most of the time, as the legs are pretty much useless.