Sommers Schwartz attorney Andy Dragovic filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of a 41-year-old man who suffered severe injuries, including the loss of both thumbs, because of radiation he sustained in an avoidable lab accident.
Michael Huberts was a medical physicist at McLaren Greater Lansing. Along with employees of McLaren Health Care Corporation, he participated in creating “electron trees” in acrylic blocks using a decommissioned linear accelerator (a machine that generates high-energy radiation to treat cancer).
One of his co-participants, Gary Ryan, allegedly modified the device to remove numerous safety protocols and allow extremely high doses of radiation, making it unreasonably dangerous. Mr. Ryan also allegedly modified the door interlocks, which prevented the machine from operating if the treatment room door was open.
While Mr. Huberts, Mr. Ryan, and other participants were operating the machine, it stopped working and showed a fault code. Mr. Huberts entered the treatment room, approached the machine, and reached for the acrylic blocks. As he did so, Mr. Ryan cleared the fault code, and the device restarted. Mr. Huberts’ hands, directly in the path of the radiation beam, were severely burned. His injuries necessitated the amputation of both thumbs.
Mr. Huberts’s lawsuit alleges that Mr. Ryan, acting as an employee of McLaren Health Care Corporation, negligently disregarded the risks of harmful radiation, improperly removed safety precautions, failed to warn Mr. Huberts that the device was active, and failed to ensure no one was in the treatment room when the device was active. As a result of this negligence, Mr. Huberts sustained severe physical, mental, and emotional damage. The complaint requests compensation for Mr. Huberts’ disfigurement, pain and suffering, emotional trauma, and other damages, and loss of consortium on behalf of his wife, Valery.
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