Family Files $7,000,000 Claim Against Doctor For Permanent Harm To Child
A placental abruption injury is a problem in a pregnancy where the placental lining separates away from the mother's uterus. In situations where placental abruption happens, to prevent the risk of severe injury or death to the child and the mother, a physician ought to immediately diagnose the situation and go forward with an emergency C-section. symptoms of placental abruption include extreme pain and abnormal bleeding in the mother or a decrease in the heart rate of the unborn child.
Consider the following documented case, a woman was admitted to the hospital after she began labor. Shortly thereafter, her child's heart rate decreased from 150 to 90 putting the baby in severe fetal distress. Although the nurse tried to raise the heart rate it did not work and the nurse paged the mother's doctor. Roughly fifteen minutes after the physician was paged and thirty minutes after the mother had been admitted, he arrived at the hospital. After an examination of the mother he determined that she needed to have an emergency C-section. But he did not have the credentials to perform this operation so the mother had to wait for a obstetrician to come to the hospital.
About 40 minutes after the woman was admitted the obstetrician arrived at the hospital. After a quick examination the physician diagnosed her with partial placental abruption and contacted a surgical team to perform the C-Section. Nearly an hour after the mother was admitted her emergency C-section finally occurred. Yet, the child was not delivered soon enough. She sustained considerable brain damage which put her in a permanent vegetative state needing full time care. The mother also had complications related to the birth which made her have a hysterectomy, rendering her unable to have any other children.
At trial, the lawyer representing the family was successful in arguing that when the nurse contacted the mother's doctor the standard of care required him to immediately contact a surgical team to do the C-section. If this immediate action had taken place, the surgical team would have been able to perform the C-section approximately a half hour after the mother got to the hospital and the resulting injury to the baby would not have happened. Although her physician adamantly denied doing so, the mother testified at trial that after the baby was born her physician admitted to her that he should have contacted the surgical team earlier.
As a result of this incident the baby was in a permanent vegetative state needing around the clock care. The baby was given a life expectancy of twenty years. Considering this and the emotional distress and physical damages experienced by the the family, their attorney was successful in achieving a jury verdict for the sum of $7 million, with $3.2 million to the baby, $2.3 million to her mother and $1.5 million to her father.
This claim shows that in situations in which a baby suffers an irreversible disability as a result of a doctor