Baby Doe was less than two months old when she contracted respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which caused her to stop breathing during the night. Her foster mother, Betty Cook, called the doctor’s office 4 hours later and was told to go to an emergency room. Instead, she took the baby to a clinic where she was seen by a family physician, Dr. Anne Hamilton.
During the appointment, Baby Doe stopped breathing necessitating resuscitation by Dr. Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton told Cook to drive the child to a hospital five minutes away. At the hospital,the baby was diagnosed as having suffered a hypoxic brain injury. Baby Doe is now 5 years old. She suffers from cortical blindness and is unable to walk, stand, sit, and feed herself or talk.
The Doe family filed a lawsuit against Betty Cook, the foster parent and Dr. Hamilton and the insurance fund for foster parents alleging that (1) Hamilton choose not to summon emergency care or accompany Baby Doe to the hospital; and (2) Cook choose not to timely go the hospital after she was told to do so by the doctor.
Before trial, the parties settled for $1.2 million. Dr. Hamilton paid $900,000 and the insurance fund for foster parents paid $300,000. The attorneys representing Baby Doe were W. Douglas Easton, Brian W. Easton and Matthew D. Easton.
Doe v. Cook, No. RIC-13-00442 (Cal. Super. Ct. Riverside County).
Kreisman Law Offices has been handling birth trauma injury cases, brain injury cases, neonatal injury cases for children, shoulder dystocia injury cases and hospital negligence cases for individuals and families who have been harmed, injured or died as a result of the carelessness or negligence of a medical provider for more than 40 years in and around Chicago, Cook County and its surrounding areas, including Bridgeview, Kenilworth, Lake Forest, Arlington Heights, Inverness, Naperville, Chicago (Jackson Park, Wicker Park, Rogers Park, Andersonville, Lithuanian Village, Back of the Yards, Old Town, Lincoln Park), Antioch, Palos Hills, South Barrington, Barrington Hills, Calumet City, Chicago Heights and Schiller Park, Ill.
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