We just settled a case against an emergency room doctor. It was a sad story as many malpractice cases are sad stories.
A mother and wife, in her 60’s, went to the emergency room complaining of pain in her right leg and right knee. Plaintiff advised the defendant physician of her history of deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, diabetes, hypertension, hypokalemia, asthma, Greenfield filter placement, right knee replacement surgery, among other medical conditions and surgical history. Most significantly, the patient was taking coumadin and had an INR of 5.0 in the ED. Despite her signs and symptoms, she was diagnosed as having joint effusion and sent home on pain killers.
48 hours later, she returned to the ED with numbness and excruciating pain in her right knee and calf. Plaintiff described the pain as throbbing and on a scale of 10, rated the pain a 10. A surgical consult revealed the patient lacked sensation in her foot, non-dopplerable dorsalis pedis pulse and was unable to dorsiflex or plantarflex her right foot.
Although a fasciotomy was performed some 50 hours after her initial presentation to the ED, muscles had already died and an amputation was necessary.
Can you imagine living your life without a leg? Sadly, our client is faced with this daily reality. Hopefully now she will have the means to make her home more handicap accessible.
The case settled for $890,000. While we cannot guarantee that future cases will have a similar result, we would be honored to discuss your emergency room case today.