Woman who suffered permanent brain damage due to medical malpractice receives $23 million
The woman in this medical malpractice case got a rough deal from the get-go, indicated a source. She was only 35-years old and a mother of four children, when she experienced unexplained headaches and other strange symptoms. In July of 2006, she went to the nearest hospital for medical attention.
Testing indicated that she had a non-bleeding aneurysm and a hospital neurosurgeon put coils into it. Unfortunately, the surgical team didn’t notice they had also perforated one of the arteries in her brain. From there on out, things went from bad to worse, explained the observer. For instance, the woman, who had been put on Heparin, a blood thinning medication, started to show signs that she was having a stroke. A nurse noticed the symptoms, but still gave the woman her Heparin.
Unfortunately, the doctors didn’t find out about the problem until it was too late to do anything and the woman’s brain was filled with blood and she had sustained significant brain damage. The complications of this fiasco left her paralyzed on one side and trying to cope with poor vision and a whole host of other medical problems. Her life had been totally changed and would never be the same again, added the investigator.
The negligent nurse settled for $1 million prior to trial and a jury awarded her $23 million to provide for her constant care. The trial took a while to get to court, but that’s usually the case with complex medical malpractice lawsuits. Most cases like this in Manhattan and Long Island require expert witnesses to testify to what standard of care was violated not to mention the fact that there would be months of intensive reading relating to the patient’s medical files.
