Advancing Care for Electrical Injury Survivors
A serious electrical shock isn't just a burn. The visible wound heals, and the patient is sent home "fine." But underneath, the real injury is often just beginning: nerve, muscle, and cognitive damage that standard tests can miss, and that most physicians aren't trained to look for. Survivors lose their work, their memory, their footing in their own lives, and they're told, again and again, that nothing is wrong.
For more than 30 years, CETRI has been one of the few places in the country focused on these injuries. We're a nonprofit in a field that draws little funding, and your support keeps us open for the survivors who have nowhere else to turn.
Whether it's $5, $50, or $500, every gift keeps 30+ years of expertise within reach.
3,260
non-fatal electrical injuries involving days away from work in 2021 and 2022 [ESFI].
Long-term Impacts
Many electrical injury survivors experience persistent and progressive neuromuscular and neuropsychological complications.
Underfunded Research
Electrical shock injury is often treated as a lower public health priority than more common diseases such as cancer and heart disease. As a result, much of the existing research on electrical injury has relied on limited private funding, leaving significant gaps in understanding, diagnosis, and treatment.
About The Chicago Electrical Trauma Rehabilitation Institute
CETRI brings together internationally recognized physicians, neuropsychologists, physical therapists, imaging scientists, biophysicists, and bioengineers, all focused on a problem most of medicine overlooks. For more than 30 years, our team has worked to understand the unique injury patterns electrical shock leaves behind and to define treatments that actually help survivors recover.
We evaluate people whose recovery has stalled, find damage others couldn't, and work with them and their physicians toward a real path forward. For many of our patients, we're among the first to tell them what's wrong, and that they aren't imagining it. For someone who has spent a long time being dismissed, that changes everything.
Our Impact
Innovation
The CETRI team was the first to explain that both thermal and non-thermal injury processes occur during electrical shock injury and report new medical therapies.
Care
CETRI’s medical team has evaluated more than 500 electrical shock survivors and has published more than 40 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and several books.
Discovery
CETRI’s discoveries and data reports have been well-cited by professional colleagues and replicated by other centers around the world. With adequate medical funding, CETRI’s contributions will increase as the program expands.
Experts are Sounding the Alarm on Electrical Injuries
Leading experts in electrical injury research and treatment, including Dr. Neil Pliskin, Dr. Raphael Lee, and Dr. David Weiss, recently took part in a podcast hosted by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) focused specifically on the hidden and long-term impacts of electrical shock injuries. Their participation underscores an important truth: electrical injuries are far more complex and devastating than most people realize.
How Your Support Makes an Impact
Patient Access & Care
Your support helps provide bridge funding for patients who are unable to afford travel to Chicago or the cost of multi-day, state-of-the-art medical evaluations.
Advancing Electrical Injury Research
Your support enables comprehensive analysis of approximately 500 electrical shock cases to identify predictors of poor recovery and support earlier, preventative interventions.
Improving Recovery & Outcomes
Your support advances research into optimal therapeutic approaches to improve nerve injury recovery after electrical shock, reducing long-term neuromuscular and neuropsychological complications.