Cleveland Birth Injury Attorney

After a four day trial, a jury awarded $2,287,000 on behalf of the husband, two minor children, and an adult daughter of a 46-year-old woman who died as a result of the negligence of Marietta Emergimed, Inc.

On March 23, 2002, the emergency room group of Marietta Memorial Hospital failed to inform a patient that she might have lung cancer. The patient went to the emergency room complaining of cough and fever. The results of a chest x-ray showed pneumonia and a shadow that potentially could be cancer. The patient was given discharge instructions to follow-up with a primary care physician and obtain a repeat chest x-ray. However, the discharge instructions appeared to be the routine discharge instructions for nothing more than pneumonia. A legal dispute ensued over whether or not the patient was told that she might have cancer and whether or not the patient was herself responsible for not obtaining a repeat chest x-ray.

The jury found that the emergency room group "failed to adequately convey potential severity of abnormal x-ray findings (increased markings) and need for immediate follow up to the patient." The jury also apportioned some fault on the patient for "failure to take responsibility of her own health care." The jury found the emergency room group 90% at fault and apportioned 10% responsibility on the patient, reducing the overall award down to $2,058,300.

Plaintiffs' child suffered a stroke the day before her first birthday. The stroke left her with right-sided paralysis and weakness. The cause of the stroke was investigated and was discovered to be moya-moya. Moya-moya is a disease which is characterized by smaller blood vessels than normal, in the brain. In February 1996, the child went to University Hospitals of Cleveland for a revascularization of her brain. The procedure was successful and Lauren showed some improvement. The physician at University Hospitals of Cleveland had asked the family to return to Cleveland in August, 1996, for a cerebral angiogram to check on the status of her brain revascularization. The cerebral angiogram is done by injecting dye into the body's arterial tree through the femoral artery (in the groin area) and then viewing that dye on fluroscopy as it reaches the cerebral vessels. The routine postoperative surveillance for an angiogram includes neurovascular checks of the leg into which the dye is injected. The reason for this is that an occasional complication of this procedure is a blood clot forming in the femoral artery as a result of the interruption of the vessel when the dye is injected. Neurovascular checks include checking the pulse in the foot of that leg, as well as checking the temperature of the leg and the capillary refill (pinching the skin and timing how long it takes for the color to return). Plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that the post`operative surveillance done on the child was inadequate and that she was permitted to leave the hospital with compromised circulation in her right leg as a result of a blood clot. The defendant denied this allegation, pointing out that a resident had documented very positive findings in that leg on the morning of discharge. Plaintiffs argued that the nurses had found otherwise and that this dispute between physician and nurses should have been addressed by the attending physician. Two days after the child was discharged from University Hospitals, she returned with an obvious clotting problem in that leg. Over the next seven years, the child had multiple procedures to improve the circulation of her right leg, one of which procedures led to a complication known as compartment syndrome. As a result of the compartment syndrome, the child's right lower exteremity became deformed and the muscle wasted away. Ultimately, in July of 2003, she was requried to undergo a below the knee amputation.

Defendant obstetrician failed to intervene in a timely fashion by way of discontinuing Pitocin or by way of c-section in the face of persistent decelerations continuing for a two hour period of time. Apgars and pH were normal and multi-organ system failure was questionable. Child suffered cerebral palsy and is profoundly retarded.