Negligent Nurse Paralyzes 52 Year Old Patient
In 2009 the Trial Lawyers at the litigation law firm of Erlich, Rosen, Bartnick & Cook P.C. in Southfield, Michigan, continue to achieve million dollar success for their clients. As reported in Michigan’s Lawyers Weekly, Sheldon Erlich successfully negotiated a $1,900,000 settlement on behalf of a 52 year old married father of two who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a medication error.
Plaintiff, a farmer by profession, developed a blood clot in his leg and presented to a local hospital in the Bay County area. He underwent emergency surgery where the clot was removed. Following surgery his epidural catheter was removed by one health care professional and eleven minutes later a different nurse administered Heparin, a blood thinner.
The standard of care requires that at least one hour passes from removal of an epidural catheter before the administration of blood thinning medication to make sure the catheter site has sufficient time to coagulate and stop bleeding. As a result of the nurse administering blood thinning medication only eleven minutes after removal of the epidural catheter Plaintiff continued to bleed beneath his skin. The Heparin was continued intravenously for 24 hours which caused the Plaintiff to continue to bleed into the epidural space under his skin.
The epidural space is an enclosed area and the continuous bleeding caused significant pressure to build up on Plaintiff’s spinal column. The hospital nurses and physicians failed to recognize there was a build up of spinal cord pressure until it was too late and the Plaintiff’s spinal cord was permanently damaged. At first Plaintiff was rendered a quadriplegic but has regained some use of his upper extremities but still suffers from permanent disability to his lower extremities rendering him wheelchair bound.
Sheldon Erlich was able to negotiate a settlement of $1,900,000 for Plaintiff and his wife. The settlement was $1,183,000 for their economic damages and $717,000 for his lifetime pain and suffering and disability.
Because of Michigan’s legislatively dictated maximum allowable recovery for the pain and suffering, disability, emotional damages, and general ruining of an injured person’s life under the Michigan Medical Malpractice Awards Cap the victim of the medical malpractice in this case received only partial justice. Due to the damages cap award found at MCL 600.1483, the negligent physician and hospital responsible for Plaintiff’s life long injuries were able to successfully hide behind the cap maximum and settle the claim for the legislatively mandated reduced amount of $717,000 for Plaintiff’s pain and suffering and disability damages, a number far below the actual damages to the Plaintiff but one arbitrarily dictated by the Michigan Legislature as a favor to the powerful insurance and physician lobbies in Lansing.
