Nicole Hill was 33 years old when she went to the hospital emergency room complaining of acute lower back pain, as well as hip and leg pain. An emergency department doctor prescribed pain medication and sent her home. Hill’s pain continued and as a result, she came back to the…
Articles Posted in Emergency Room Errors
Cook County Jury Sides with Hospital in Misdiagnosed Brain Aneurysm Medical Malpractice/ Wrongful Death Case
Rebecca Gaither was transported by ambulance to West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, Ill., on Nov. 27, 2012 with complaints of rear lower head pain and vision loss in her right eye. At the emergency room, she complained of a sudden onset of neck pain with an immediate episode of…
$2.01 Million Jury Verdict for Failure to Diagnose Compartment Syndrome
Dawn Arrigoni, 35, went to the emergency room at Woodwinds Hospital complaining of vomiting, fever and abdominal pain. The nurses there attempted to place a peripheral IV but had trouble placing it. A nurse practitioner then placed an intraosseous (IO) line. An intraosseous infusion line is used in the process…
$5.6 Million Jury Verdict for Patient Left Paraplegic Following Late Diagnosis of Spinal Abscess
Aaron Riedel, who was 28 at the time, went to Lodi Community Hospital emergency room complaining of back pain. He told the emergency department staff that he was taking an antibiotic to treat a MRSA infection. Riedel was later discharged from Lodi Community Hospital with a diagnosis of simple muscle…
Illinois Appellate Court Sends Case Back to Trial Judge for Further Disposition on Relation-Back Doctrine
This case arrived at the Illinois Appellate Court as an interlocutory appeal that came about from the plaintiff Eric Owens’s lawsuit against the defendant hospital, Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital, and its doctors related to the care received by Owens at the hospital’s emergency room in 2011. He initially named…
$24.9 Million Jury Verdict Entered After Hospital and Doctors Failed to Timely Diagnose and Treat Blood Clot
Virginia Schneider, 18, went to Griffin Hospital to be treated for a severe asthma attack. In the process of evaluating her condition, emergency physicians Dr. Gregory Boris and Dr. Alyssa French learned of her left leg pain and numbness. The doctors ordered an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot.…
$3.72 Million Jury Verdict for Delayed Treatment of Stroke
Kristine Haveman, 38, collapsed at home and was brought to a nearby hospital in an unresponsive condition. The emergency room personnel examined her and ordered a CT scan. Doctors interpreted the scans as normal. That evening a neurologist diagnosed a thrombus in the left cerebral artery, which necessitated thrombolytic therapy.…
Jury Finds for Hospital and Doctors in Undiagnosed Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm Death
Michael Sebestl, 37, experienced the sudden onset of severe chest pain. This occurred at home around 6 a.m. on June 1, 2008. He told his wife he thought he was having a heart attack, so she called 911 and he was taken by ambulance to Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee,…
$4.58 Million Jury Verdict in Medical Malpractice Death Case
Nakeyia McMichael, a 33-year-old nurse, was hospitalized for treatment for a cerebral edema. Just 18 months later she returned to the hospital’s emergency room complaining of head pain, nausea and vomiting. Two hospital emergency department residents and the defendant, Dr. John Pakiela, an osteopath employed by General Emergency Medical Specialists,…
$6.3 Million Jury Verdict in the Death of a Patient Who Died After a Physician Chose Not To Refer the Patient to a Cardiologist
Dwayne Kantorowski underwent surgery to treat a brain tumor. He was just 45 years old, but he later experienced stroke-like symptoms. He promptly went to a hospital emergency room where he underwent an EKG. Although the test showed abnormalities, the attending emergency physician did not order additional blood tests or…