Articles Posted in Emergency Room Errors

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Janice Bishop presented to the emergency department at Graham Hospital in Canton, Ill., with complaints of chest pain on July 19, 2010. The emergency room physician ordered an EKG, which demonstrated non-specific T-wave changes compared to a prior 2007 EKG.

Multiple nitroglycerine injections and one Lovenox injection were administered to Bishop in the ER. She was then admitted to a post-coronary care unit under the attention of the defendant physician Dr. Patrick Renick. Serial EKGs were then done.

Dr. Renick discharged Bishop the next morning, July 20, 2010, with orders for a stress test to be done as an outpatient.  The outpatient stress test was scheduled for July 23, 2010, but she subsequently canceled it due to insurance coverage issues.

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Angelica Heavner, 41, went to the hospital emergency room for treatment of jaw and head pain. A hospital employee placed an IV into Heavner’s metacarpal vein on her right hand. The insertion of the IV caused her to develop a blister at that site, plus burning and stinging pain.

The IV was not removed immediately. Heavner developed complications and was later diagnosed with having complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) of the right hand, which necessitated medication and a spinal cord stimulator. CRPS, or reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, causes chronic pain in patients who have contracted it. The cause of CRPS is varied. In some cases, the cause of CRPS is the dysfunction in the central or peripheral nervous system.

Heavner filed a lawsuit against the hospital, alleging its employee negligently inserted the IV, which resulted in nerve contact and thus was the cause of the CRPS. The lawsuit also maintained that the defendant’s failure to promptly identify the problem and remove the IV led to the chronic pain syndrome. There was no claim for lost income.

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Kastriot Sadiku, a 29-year-old student who had used oxycodone, went to a hospital suffering from vomiting and impaired respiration among other symptoms. He was seen by an internist, Dr. Joseph Hederman, who gave Sadiku supplemental oxygen and began to monitor his heart and blood oxygenation.

When Sadiku’s condition worsened, he was attached to a respirator.

About an hour and half later, Dr. Hederman consulted an intensivist, Dr. Steven Bonzino, who diagnosed acute respiratory distress. Dr. Bonzino adjusted Sadiku’s supplemental oxygen.

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In this Cook County, Ill., medical malpractice and wrongful death case, the hospital, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services Inc. and Dr. Perry Marshall D.O. have appealed the jury’s verdict in favor of the family of the decedent, Georgia Tagalos.

On July 9, 2006, the plaintiff, Ted Fragogiannis accompanied by his mother, Georgia Tagalos, went to visit a friend in Bourbonnais, Ill. She was a long-time sufferer of asthma. During the ride home, Fragogiannis noticed that his mother began wheezing and gasping for air. She used two different inhalers, but her condition did not improve. She went into respiratory distress. Fragogiannis called 911 and arranged for an ambulance to meet them on the highway and take his mother to the hospital. According to the paramedics’ protocol, Tagalos was taken to St. Francis Hospital, which was the nearest hospital.

Tagalos arrived at the hospital at 1:45 p.m. and at that point she could no longer speak, but she was still responsive. Dr. Marshall was the emergency room’s attending physician. He was summoned by the nurse to address what had become a respiratory emergency. Dr. Marshall was at Tagalos’s bedside within minutes, but the parties disagreed about how many minutes elapsed. Dr. Marshall instructed a fourth year emergency room resident physician to see Ms. Tagalos and indicated that she might need to be intubated. The fourth year emergency resident, Dr. Julie Mills, assessed the patient and determined that an emergency intubation was required. At 1:56 p.m., 11 minutes after arriving at the hospital and while Dr. Mills was preparing for intubation, Tagalos became unresponsive.

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In this confidential settlement, a 13-year-old girl was sent to the hospital after she was involved in an automobile accident. She underwent an abdominal CT scan with contrast, which revealed a lacerated spleen with free fluid. The girl was referred to as “Doe” in this case for the purpose of maintaining confidentiality. Doe was transferred to a local hospital. An emergency room physician there reviewed the CT images with the radiologist. A pediatric surgeon also saw the scans.

Doe’s vital signs continued to worsen, and she complained of abdominal pain. A nurse notified the on-call resident of the worsening condition. This doctor diagnosed fluid shifting and ordered IV fluid and morphine.

The next morning a trauma surgeon ordered emergency surgery. Doe suffered a heart attack and required resuscitation before the procedure, which revealed a necrotic bowel resulting from the seatbelt injury in the automobile crash. Doe was then transferred to the ICU where she suffered a heart attack and died. The cause of death was determined to be septic shock resulting from seatbelt-related intra-abdominal injuries. Continue reading

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Lauren Readler, 2, was taken to the emergency room because she was vomiting and had severe stomach pain. She had not had a bowel movement for two days.

Lauren was given Zofran. Her parents were told to follow up with her pediatrician. Lauren’s symptoms persisted. She was returned to the emergency room at the same hospital. Lauren then underwent an X-ray and was diagnosed as having a gastrointestinal problem.

The emergency department physicians recommended that Lauren be transferred to a different hospital.

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This confidential settlement took place because of the death of a 62- year-old man who had a long history of smoking. He was also obese. The patient, who we will call Mr. Doe, suffered lethargy, a fever and general weakness, and he also had sharp chest pain for two days. He went to a hospital emergency room. It was there that he underwent testing that included an EKG. The report on the EKG was normal.

Mr. Doe was diagnosed as having a virus, and he was discharged with instructions to follow up with his primary care physician.

Three days later, he suffered tachycardia, which is shortness of breath and chest burning. Mr. Doe was taken to the hospital where an EKG showed evidence of myocardial infarction, a heart attack. Before he could be transferred to a different hospital, he died. He was survived by his wife.

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Koni Johnson filed suit against two emergency physicians and their employer, Cook County, alleging the doctors were negligent in their treatment of her spinal cord injury. She had gone to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, a/k/a Cook County Hospital a day after she slipped and fell injuring her back.

Johnson alleged that the county violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd) by choosing not to provide appropriate screening and to stabilize her medical condition before discharging her.

Cook County, which owns and operates Stroger Hospital, requested summary judgment based on Sections 6-105 and 6-106 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. The defendants argued they had provided appropriate treatment for the condition the emergency room doctors diagnosed, which was muscle spasm and back and buttocks bruises.

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On April 29, 2004, 36-year-old Tamara Greico sprained her ankle during a bowling match. She was diagnosed in the emergency room of a hospital with a severe ankle sprain. She had wrapped it and was given crutches and told to keep her ankle elevated before being referred to an Alton, Ill., clinic.

The physician’s assistant and medical assistant at the clinic testified at the jury trial that they saw Tamara the next day and made a similar diagnosis while also giving her a walking boot, medication and instruction for exercising the ankle. Tamara returned to the clinic on May 5, 2004 complaining of more pain and numbness in her toes. A physician and one of the defendants, Dr. Bruce Vest, testified that he examined her and considered the possibility that she had a deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot, but ruled it out and did not order anticoagulant therapy.

Two days later, Tamara’s employer found her lying on the ground near her car in the office parking lot, lapsing in and out of consciousness. She was taken to the hospital where she complained of breathing problems before going into cardiac arrest.

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HW was 44 years old and had a history of heroin abuse. He developed severe back pain and then went to a local hospital’s emergency room telling the nursing staff that he was also suffering from heroin addiction and that he had experienced fever and nausea.

HW underwent testing, including an EKG, x-rays and blood work and was discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis of exacerbated back pain and narcotic withdrawal.

When the final results of HW’s blood culture were finalized it showed that he was suffering from a systemic blood infection. However, the hospital claimed that it was not able to reach HW by phone to advise him of these very dangerous results. Instead, the hospital sent a certified letter to the address that HW had given at the time of his admission. A copy of that letter was found in his medical records file. Predictably, before HW received the letter, he suffered paralysis from his chest down because of the systemic blood infection.

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