Wrongful death trial claims medical malpractice

A mother of three suffered a wrongful death at the hands of an emergency room doctor. This is the claim of her husband of 28 years who says that if the emergency room doctor who treated her had recognized his wife’s condition in a timely manner, then she would most likely be alive today.

Her husband has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming medical malpractice caused by the negligence of a doctor in his failure to treat the condition of the 45-year-old woman.

She had suffered a fall and was brought to an emergency room in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York. According to the evidence, a CT scan showed that the woman’s brain was bleeding.

However, the husband claims that the emergency room doctor did not respond to her condition in a timely manner. This is because she went into a coma soon thereafter. She did undergo surgery later that day, but the damage had already been done. Doctors informed her family that she would not recover. The next day her family decided to remove her from life support.

Emergency room doctors are placed under a tremendous amount of pressure to make accurate decisions very quickly as to the proper care of a patient. Unfortunately, when they make a mistake and fail to treat a medical condition, the patient has lost precious time, which many times can result in even more severe injuries, and sometimes even death.

This case is currently at trial. The defense is suggesting that the woman had an underlying medical condition that resulted in her death. However, the question remains: If the emergency room doctor had treated her bleeding brain right away, would she have survived?

Source: NorthJersey.com, “Medical negligence trial involving Chilton doctor gets under way,” John Petrick, April 26, 2012