Sommers Schwartz attorneys Matthew Turner and Lenore Zakhem secured a confidential $1 million medical malpractice settlement for a man who suffered catastrophic and permanent injuries after physicians, nurses, and other hospital personnel failed to timely diagnose and treat the stroke he was experiencing while in the hospital’s ICU. 

The plaintiff was admitted to the defendant hospital for a parastomal hernia repair with mesh procedure. He suffered complications after the operation and remained in the hospital for treatment of those complications. He was in the ICU when he began having stroke-like symptoms. Notwithstanding the likelihood that the plaintiff was having a stroke, the attending doctors, nurses, and other staff made multiple errors that led to their failure to identify, treat, and mitigate the damage the stroke was causing.

The plaintiff claimed the defendants did not perform the necessary examinations and evaluations to accurately determine his last-known “normal time,” crucial to ensuring he was a candidate for the brain-saving treatment that would have been available. The defendant doctors, nurses, and physician assistants did not adequately communicate with each other about the patient’s condition, did not share information with the hospital’s stroke team, did not timely order vital imaging tests, and did not follow the hospital’s stroke policies and protocols. 

In combination, these breaches of the standard of care deprived the plaintiff of the opportunity to receive tPA, a medication that dissolves blood clots that block blood flow to the brain. When administered quickly after stroke onset, tPA can help restore blood flow to brain regions affected by a stroke and limit the risk of damage and functional impairment.

Because the plaintiff was denied the benefit of the tPA therapy that likely would have entirely or significantly reversed his stroke and substantially improved his functional outcome, he now suffers from permanent and debilitating injuries that dramatically diminish his quality of life.