Cataracts from Eyedrops

A physician breached the prevailing professional standard of in their care and treatment of our client by the use of inappropriate prolonged use of corticosteroid. This resulted in thinned corneas and subcapsular cataract formation in both eyes.

The formation of the cataracts caused diminished vision in both eyes. The client underwent corrective surgery for the subcapsular cataract in one eye at Bascom-Palmer Eye Institute. The diminished vision has included worry and concern for present and future vision and have caused her to reconsider her ability to return to her career.

Cement Truck

Our client, a nine year old child, had just exited a school bus in front of her house. A dump truck was stopped behind the school bus while a cement truck was approaching from behind the stopped dump truck. The operator of the cement truck was apparently asleep or cognitively impaired. The cement truck rear-ended the dump truck. The collision caused the dump truck to hit the school bus. The school bus was pushed forward and knocked the child to the ground and passed over the child. The cement truck continued to push the dump truck forward causing the dump truck to hit the child as she was lying on the street. The dump truck appeared to be bouncing up and down as it was pushed forward by the cement truck. The child, who was wearing a book back pack, was caught on the dump truck bumper and was observed being thrown up and down under the bumper of the dump truck at least three times before the dump truck came to a rest. The dump truck was pushed forward 82 feet before coming to a complete stop.

The child was airlifted from the scene to Orlando Regional Medical Center and then transferred to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando.

The child sustained significant traumatic injuries to her right leg which included a severe (grade III B) open distal femur fracture with avulsion and severe destruction of the soft tissues. Her knee joint, along with the femoral growth plate, were destroyed.

The child stayed 27 days in the hospital for her initial hospital stay. During that time, an external fixator was applied to stabilize her wound and multiple surgeries were performed to debride her leg of necrotic tissue and cleanse the wound from the diesel fuel and other contaminants.

These injuries caused the child excruciating pain in her leg along with limited mobility and use of her leg. In addition to the initial hospitalization and subsequent surgeries, the child has spent 85 days as a hospital patient.

The child’s past medicals totaled $529,943.77.

The child will require numerous leg lengthening procedures until she attains the age of eighteen years. Thereafter, she will require surgery every ten years to replace her prosthetic knee.

A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the minor child and her father seeking past and future medical bills, loss of income for the father, and pain and suffering, disability, significant permanent scarring and loss of future earning capacity for the minor child.

Chemotherapy Injury

During the administration of our client’s chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, the defendant doctor’s nurse allowed the caustic chemotherapy agent, Adriamycin, to infiltrate from the Infuse-A-Port into our client’s chest causing a chemical burn known as an extravasation. he nurse ignored the complaints of pain during the administration of the drug and she should have immediately stopped the chemotherapy.

The patient had complaints of pain, erythema and induration around the port site which measured 4.5 cm in diameter. The defendant doctor confirmed it was a chemical burn from the extravasation of Adriamycin. The defendant doctor suggested waiting one week more before she consulted a surgeon for a possible excision of the damaged tissue. Unfortunately, Adriamycin is a chemotherapy drug which has properties that bind to the DNA of the cell structure causing the drug to have a “progressive” nature. The only way to terminate the damage of an Adriamycin extravasation to the surrounding tissue is to immediately cut it away. This and additional delays, on defendant doctor’s part, in taking appropriate action resulted in a larger and more severe area which was burned by the Adriamycin and prolonged the healing process of the wound, taking our client out of the window of opportunity to continue with the chemotherapy. A lawsuit was filed against the physician and his corporate employer. The patient died from her breast cancer after the case was resolved.

Club Foot Operation - Post-Operative Care

Our client, a 14 year old girl, was admitted to Defendant’s hospital for post-operative recovery following a bilateral arthrodesis procedure to correct her club feet. The Defendant’s nurses and other employees negligently failed to conduct proper neurovascular checks, CMS checks, and circulation, motion, and sensation checks, while her right foot was in a long leg cast, resulting in the amputation of the fourth and fifth toes and the partial amputation of the third toe. Plaintiff now has a right foot imbalance (right foot drop) as a result of her walking on the outside of her foot, which will require surgery. The client will need significant reconstructive surgery of right foot which will include mobilization of IP and MTP joints of great toe on right, and some further stabilization to either brace or rigidly fix her right foot drop to improve her gait.

Decubitus Ulcers

Our client was admitted to the hospital for vascular surgery. This surgery was meant to improve the quality of life for our client.

Like many patients after surgery, the client was confused and charted as being restrained which made him totally dependent on the staff of the hospital for his care. After the surgery, our client had a removable cast placed on his left leg. Through neglect on the part of the nursing staff at the hospital, our client developed decubitus ulcerations on both heels and pressure sores underneath the removable cast. The pressure sores were discovered only after he complained of the pain and asked that the cast be removed. The nursing staff was also unaware of the heel ulcerations until a visitor brought them to the attention of a nurse a few days after the surgery. Upon seeing the pressure sores, the nurse rushed out of the room and returned with something to elevate the patient’s feet .

Since it was a known fact, according to our client’s Admission Summary, that he was admitted with pitting edema of the left leg, per the nurse’s assessment, and poor circulation, per the physician’s assessment, then it would follow that protection of the extremities and bony areas should have been given high priority. However, NO heel protection was done prior to surgery or after surgery until the pressure sores were discovered.

Our client again documented on the Admission Summary, went to the hospital without open sores on 1/10/96 and left 12 days later with a documented Stage II ulcer on his left heel and nothing noted on his right heel, though earlier it had been noted to have been red and spongy.

The hospital record is replete with incomplete references of heel protectors, pillows, Lubriderm applications, and turning the patient. The hospital failed to turn our client, provide skin care and assess skin status, as it was sometimes documented in the record. If these things had been done, the nursing staff would have noticed the condition of our client’s heels and prevented the ulcers.

Nurses take an oath to be a patient’s advocate and to provide reasonable care. Not performing the simple procedure of turning a patient, assessing a patient or putting heel protectors in place is falling below the acceptable standard of care. The failure of the hospital to take the appropriate action with regard to our client’s skin care has resulted in severe pain, mental anguish and an entire lifestyle change for our client with substantial limitations in his everyday life. Our client’s damages were substantial and severe. The treating physician recommended amputation of the leg which our client refused. The client died from his injuries.

Defective Crate

Our client was unloading a crated diesel truck engine from the back of a truck when he was injured. As the crate cleared the tailgate, our client’s right hand, holding a structural portion of the crate was pinned by the engine as the crate’s bottom dropped open. Our client’s instinctive reaction to the pinning, and his hand being pulled to the ground by the engine, was to pull his hand out of the crate. In doing so, the back of the right hand was ripped open and de-gloved, exposing the tendons and muscle sheath of the dorsal side of his hand.

The crate had the following effects:

a. the crate was not designed with sufficient strength for multiple shipments even though the Parts Invoice states that this engine was going to be shipped overseas;
b. the bolts were too short, as well as of an insufficient load capacity, as they were bent from the weight of the engine;
c. the four screws which were embedded into the wooden “cradle” in which the engine rested had been handled to the point, when lifted from the Tabernacle’s truck, where the bolts had lost over half of their ability to keep the crate structurally sound;
d. the wire binding around the crate had not been tightened and so the integrity of the weight distribution design had been compromised;
e. the crate was to be transported by mechanical means, by only supporting its weight from underneath.

A lawsuit was filed against the corporation which sold the engine alleging both negligence and strict liability for a defective product.

Dog-caused Injury

Our client, a child, was a guest in a home. As the child was petting a dog, it scratched her causing severe damage to her face and eye. The child required emergency surgery that night at Florida Hospital to repair her torn tear duct near her right eye. This was especially terrifying for the child as her parents were out of state at the time and they were not available to be with her. The child also suffered multiple facial lacerations and faces dermabrasion for her scars caused by this dog.

The dog was an excitable one with a propensity to aggressive behavior and has a history of biting children, however, the parents and child were never apprised of these facts prior to the attack.

Drunk Driver

Our client, a charge nurse at a local hospital, was a passenger on the hospital’s shuttle bus. The employees were required to park off-site from the hospital and the hospital’s shuttle bus was used to ferry employees to and from the hospital and the employee parking lot. The hospital’s shuttle bus, as it was leaving the hospital’s parking lot, had a green light. A drunk driver failed to stop for the red light and T-boned the hospital’s shuttle bus in which our client was a passenger, causing the shuttle bus to roll over on its side.

Our client was thrown violently inside the shuttle bus striking the stanchion at the stairs of the bus on the opposite side from which our client was seated.

She was transported by ambulance to the emergency room where she was treated and hospitalized for 6 days. She was released home with home health care and physical therapy.

The client suffered displaced fractures of T2 and T3 and fractured posterior ribs, bulging at T4-T5, T6-T7, and T9-T10, a torn rotator cuff of her right shoulder, a “crush” injury to her right thigh and kneecap, nerve impingement in her cervical spine, bilateral ulnar impingement, and bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome, closed head injury, and multiple fractures to her right foot from a change in gait due to her injuries.

These injuries manifested themselves in headaches, neck pain, right shoulder pain, thoracic pain, rib pain causing shortness of breath, low back pain radiating down her legs, tingling, numbness and pain in her wrists and hands, her numbness is from her fingertips to her forearms and follows the ulnar nerve distribution, cognitive impairment, post-traumatic fibromyalgia, fatigue, sleep disturbances and depression secondary to her injuries and pain.

The client has had to undergo multiple cervical and thoracic spinal cord stimulator implants and a permanent dorsal column stimulator implant which had to be re-implanted two months later. She had to have surgery on her right shoulder to repair the damage from this accident and had surgery for the ulnar nerve entrapment and the release of her carpal tunnel on her right side. All 5 of her toes on the right foot were required to be surgically broken and reset to restore the function of her right foot.

A physical medicine doctor stated in his Comprehensive Rehabilitation Report that the client has a 35% permanent impairment of the whole person.

Emergency Room Negligence - Wrongful Death

Our client was a 37 year old woman who was a wife and mother of a young daughter. She entered the emergency room, complaining of chest pain. Client’s husband advised the emergency room receptionist that he was concerned that his wife may be having a heart attack and requested immediate attention. The staff member responded that he should not say she was having a heart attack because that would only get her more excited and could cause her to have a heart attack.

In addition, she was too young to be having a heart attack. Patients sitting in the emergency room observing the obvious distress of our client went to the emergency room staff and demanded immediate attention for our client. After waiting 50 minutes in the waiting room of the emergency room, a nurse took her pulse and noted that the patient was very anxious. Our client was then placed on a gurney in the hallway and while hyperventilating a nurse told our client that she “needed to calm down”. An hour and forty minutes after the patient entered the emergency room she was diagnosed as having acute cardiopulmonary arrest. Our client died of acute myocardial infarction and cardial arrhythmia due to the negligence of the emergency room staff. Emergency room staff breached the prevailing professional standard of care during their treatment of our client in that they failed to adequately assess her vital signs and chief complaint, failed to provide appropriate medical care for a myocardial infarction. The husband filed suit seeking medical bills, pain and suffering and loss of companionship of his wife. The minor daughter brought a claim for the loss of support and services of her mother, the loss of parental companionship, instruction and guidance and mental pain and suffering as a result of the death of her mother.

Emergency Room Negligence - Wrongful Death

While riding as a passenger in a motor vehicle, a 25-year old wife and mother suffered a “sentinel” or warning bleed of a subarachnoid hemorrhage in her brain. She was taken by ambulance to the emergency room. The patient died of the subarachnoid hemorrhage two days later.

The patient had been painting the inside of her house for the better part of the day. She had stopped at approximately 4:30pm. She had gone to dinner and was leaving her mother’s home when she complained of a severe headache, vomited, experienced a 15-second seizure, and loss of consciousness for 30 seconds. An ambulance was called to the scene and transported the patient to the emergency room of the closest hospital.

The emergency room staff believed the patient was reacting to the paint used to paint her house. Precious time was lost while the paint can was retrieved. The paint was non-toxic. The patient was not seen by a doctor for over one hour after her arrival at the emergency room. A CT scan was not performed until over 1 1/2 hours after arrival. A neurosurgeon was not called for over two hours.

Because the neurosurgeon was already in surgery, the patient was not seen by a neurosurgeon until six hours after her arrival at the emergency room. A helicopter was available to transport the patient to another hospital where more than one neurosurgeon was available to provide care. Because of the delay in diagnosis and treatment, the patient suffered severe brain injury and was declared brain dead two days later.