A jury awarded approximately $11 million to a woman who became partially paralyzed after waiting two hours for a hospital brain scan. Jurors found that the hospital was negligent in caring for the woman after she fractured her skull in a fall in 2004. The woman was cleared for a brain scan two hours before she got one. The test was ordered to check for bleeding. Because of the delay, the woman allegedly lapsed into a coma in the emergency room less than an hour after the scan. She now has no movement in her left side and uses a wheelchair.
I have successfully handled a number of emergency room medical malpractice cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland. Emergency room doctors are required to recognize serious medical conditions and admit patients who require significant treatment. Some of the cases I have handled alleged a failure to properly diagnose a heart attack, failure to diagnose and admit a suicidal patient, failure to diagnose pulmonary embolism, failure to diagnose an abdominal aortic aneurysm, failure to diagnose brain injury, etc.
We handle cases like these all of the time in my practice.
Contact Andrew G. Slutkin with further questions or inquiries at 410-385-2786