Sommers Schwartz attorneys Matthew Turner and Richard Groffsky filed an emergency room and hospital medicine malpractice lawsuit for a woman who suffered a catastrophic stroke after ER physicians and other treating doctors failed to accurately and timely diagnose a life-threatening aneurysm before it burst. 

According to the complaint, the woman presented to the ER of the defendant hospital complaining of the worst headache she had ever experienced. Due to several alleged breaches of the standard of care by the emergency room physicians and the attending hospitalists, they failed to recognize that the patient had  an aneurysm with a small leak called a sentinel bleed. The plaintiff claims the defendants acted negligently by not obtaining an adequate medical history and performing the necessary tests, like a lumbar puncture, that would have revealed she was at high risk for a rupture of the aneurysm. The plaintiff also claims the defendants failed to  seek a timely neurological consult that would have revealed the gravity of her condition. 

Because of the defendants’ failure to timely recognize or treat the aneurysm, it ruptured. The bleeding that followed caused an SAH, and the patient suffered a catastrophic stroke. Consequently, she sustained severe and permanent brain damage and will need extensive and constant medical care, treatment, rehabilitation, therapy, and hospitalization for the rest of her life. 

The medical malpractice lawsuit seeks compensation for the plaintiff’s past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and other damages.