Connecticut Injury Attorney Blog

Medication Errors of a wide variety and levels of seriousness continue to occur with alarming regularity. This affects patient populations across all spectrums of ages and circumstances. Unfortunately, what it comes down to is that human error and lack of uniform safety and redundant verification procedures. There is a certain statistical frequency that such mistakes re-occur so that in smaller States like Connecticut this effects a smaller number of people versus someone living in New York or New Jersey for example. Such episodes are not confined to the administration of medicines while in Hospitals as the error may be at the phamacy or even a physician's office. The latter events seem to happen when certain medical offices fail to take account of other medicines that a patient is already taking and sometimes those medicines have in fact been prescribed by a different medical specialty. Reactions to being over medicated or being provided the wrong medicataions can be fatal but more often than not are close calls. Because of the difficulty and expense involved in bringing a medical malpractice claim or a products liability claim, only the more serious injuries tend to make their way into a lawsuit. This does not minimize the impact of the close calls though and if lawsuit avoidance really becomes one of luck in terms of how badly harmed the particular patient is then the problem is obviously not going away as the incentives to be more careful and implement better procedures and technology is lacking.

On occasion, my office will take on a relatively smaller medication error claim to help sound the warning bell so to speak. Recently, a young Connecticut Woman had her blood tested and was told that the lab results confirmed adult onset leukemia. Additional testing had not been completed to confirm the diagnosis. The lab results were eventually proven mistaken but not before this lady had begun a heavy course of chemotherapy and a painful bone biopsy. The error was found and the woman went from grief and depression to shock at the news that she had been sickened by the medicines prescribed while lacking a proper diagnosis. Another more serious instance which my Firm is involved in concerns an already hospitalized patient prescribed mulitple sedatives,sleep and pain agents which when combined with one another increased the risk of respiratory depression. Tragically, that is what happened and when the Lady went into respiratory arrest her brain was starved and she suffered a permanant injury due to lack of oxygen also known as Hypoxia. Ultimately, she was left in a vegatative state and her family members were confronted with the challenge of withdrawing artificial life support at the recommendation of her Doctors. Very Sad.

Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice cases are not only about benefiting the injured parties, obtaining answers for them and appropriate financial compensation,but also about achieving social justice which benefits us all. To quote Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Peter Zarella:

"The profession of law is not just a business. It transcends a mere occupation. It is a lifelong communal pursuit of justice."

Just like government must be accountable to have a free and fair society and its mistakes laid bare the same is true in our society's private endeavors. Errors committed by Connecticut area hospitals, physicians, construction companies, manufacturers , Insurance companies as well as Companies who employ Connecticut workers must be held accountable where their actions cause harm and suffering. The natural inclination to deny any mistake or wrongdoing and defend is most often the predictable iniital response. Occasionally, active concealment and coverup is as well. Neither instinct when allowed by these Entities to become an ongoing legal strategy serves to assure justice to those injured or the rest of us. That behavior is injurious to our familes in the larger community and must not be tolerated. You may find below a number of active claims and cases which implicate some of these concerns and my firm has direct involvement in them. Some of the details and identities of those involved are intentionally left out due to privacy concerns as well as the fact that they are active matters. Some of these will no doubt end up being decided by a Connecticut Jury and fundamental considerations of fairness require discretion at this point. If you have a serious matter which may help improve safety for others in our community we would welcome your immediate contact.

Connecticut Hospital allows Surgeon who operates on Woman's breast at the wrong site to re dictate operative note weeks later

Patient is over sedated following routine surgery, goes into respiratory distress and dies

A Woman driving a Toyota traveling on the Meritt Parkway loses control of her vehicle and crashes due to a brake pedal malfunction

Company involved in Middletown gas plant explosion is sued for the reckless conduct of one of its supervisor on the Highway

State of Connecticut Department of Transportation Truck amputates the leg of a maintenance worker

A disturbed young man whose family member calls the police on to prevent a threatened suicide is evaluated an released by a local Connecticut Hopsital deemed not to be at risk in apparent violation of the applicable assessment criteria and kills himself within 24 hours

Thirty minutes after a gang related incident invovling a shooting at a night club after hours, a young man who was a chef just off duty getting a bite to eat at a local restaurant is fatally shot . The local municipality involved failed to order a curfew and crowd dispersion when twenty minutes before gang related shooting occured and a large noisy crowd had filled that local restaurant and police officers were standing outside and actually commenting to eachother that the place was overcrowded. When trouble started inside nobody could get out when trouble started beginning with verbal altercations and chairs being thrown.

Elderly Nursing/Rehabilitation home resident requiring a two person assist is moved by only one nurses aide ,who lies about what happened in written note about the incident, fractures hip, has surgery and ultimately dies due to related complications. Family misses him terribly and is devastated.

Insurance Company decides to deny claim and offer nuisance value settlement after the Decdent dies due to surgery related complications. Implicit theory of defense appears to be that since the Woman is no longer hear to testify what happened in the motor vehicle accident in the first place they may win the case outright.

In this age of diminishing expectations from our professional community , high profile reputational crashes and the like it is easy to forget the good that comes out of serious and dedicated efforts in the much maligned personal injury practice field. Any serious reflection upon the advances in industrial and consumer product safety, hospital and medical procedures will recognize the direct benefits brought about by shining the light of financial accountability on those involved. Personal injury Lawyers may not always have such noble thoughts in mind since they are caught up in pursuing their client's individual cases while trying to make a living for their own respective families in the process. However, the contribution which such efforts have made to fostering continued safety improvements and increased efforts to provide safe work and consumer environments are undeniable.

Accidents involving Buses have repeatedly made headlines in our State. Most recently, a school bus driven by an operator with a poor driving history was involved in a tragic bus crash which led to the death of a Rocky Hill High School student and injured scores of others. In this particular event, it appears that the lack of mandatory seat belts for Connecticut school bus riders shares blame with the bus operator's error and that of his employer for hiring this individual in the first place without conducting a thorough driving history background check. This occurence is now reverberating through Connecticut's legislature and perhaps will finally enable the necessary political will to adopt laws protecting the vulnerable passengers of such motor carriers. The sheer weight and mass of the bus when combined with highway speeds or rollovers at even city street speeds produces sheer and crush injuries to the muscular skeletal frame of many riders.

Mandatory seat belt requirments would come at a price which most would support and yet another example of how industry will fail to adopt proven and available technology where neither the government nor the civil courts have held them accountable for not providing it as a standard safety feature. It shocks the conscience to imagine that cost benefit studies have been undertaken and held up in private collaborative settings as justification for holding back upon the implementation of this widely accepted technology in passenger car settings. It remains a blemish upon a progressive State such as ours that such legislation has repeatedly been held hostage to political jockeying and never yet made it our of Comittee and onto the floor for a successful vote. Perhaps things would have turned out differently for the Greater Hartford Academy students and this young talented High Schooler who accompanied them on this bus ride.

Given an appropriate case to force the issue, I remain convinced that a single verdict against even one bus manufacturer which has failed to install this readily available equipment and the vendor which distribute these machines may have a resounding impact on the accepted standards of conduct.

September 19, 2009
Posted In: Recent News , Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect , Fractures , Brain Injury , Wrongful Death

By Paul Levin on September 19, 2009 12:18 PM | Permalink
The consequences of Nursing Home abuse and neglect to Connecticut's elderly and most vulnerable residents does not often make headlines in Connecticut's newspapers and television broadcasts. Perhaps some of the reason for this is that when an elderly resident of a Nursing Home or rehabilitation facility falls and fractures their hip or sustains a serious head injury the intial reaction is too often a misplaced sense that "these things happen when one gets old." The same reaction might occur when an elderly person chokes on their food which may actually stem from a diet not sufficiently monitored for reduced mastication function or develops painful bed sores and skin ulcers as a result of an insufficient physcial activity plan and/or inadequate interventions related to periodic position changes while resting in bed. The problem is that these sorts of events while commonplace occurences are not supposed to happen while in the protective custody of a qualified Nursing Home or Rehab facility.

In Connecticut, there are overlapping federal and State regualtions and well accepted standards of care in terms of resident and patient management which require a throrough evaluation and action plan for each resident which addresses all critical functions of daily living. These include regimented fall protection prgrams and prescribed interventions, nutrition and physcial activity management. Medicare regulations require the facilities to adopt and demonstrate compliance with a physical activivty action and rehabilitation plan designed to improve the condition of the elderly residents rather than allow them to warehoused until the point of requiring acute hospitalization or death. I have a particular disdain for facilities which allow their dependent residents to suffer the sometimes terrible consequences of avoidable incidnets. My firm pursues such matters with purpose and vigor and has developed excellent expert resources to bring to bear in the analysis of
whether Nursing Home negligence is a subsantial factor in the serious injury,abuse or event the death of an affected family member.

Presently, my firm is in the final stages of preparation for a wrongful death suit soon to be brought against a local Nursing Home named Marlborough Manner. This case will shortly be filed on behalf of the Estate of George Cooley who suffered a pelvic fracture from a fall which should not have happened last December. George died as a result of complications he suffered following the necessary surgery to stabilize his fracture so that he would be able to walk again once he left the facility which he was temporarily in for rehabilitation purposes. Well, George never left and his family has not forgotten him nor the violation of trust which brought this awful result about. Due to medication management issues affecting his gait and stability, George was temporarily in need of two staff members to assist him with ambulation to assure that he would not fall per the written action plan in effect . In fact, The physical therapy department even suggested a gait belt to be tied to him as a further measure of security. George fell when one indadequately trained nurse's aide attempted to assist him to the toilet by herself! All manner of serious injury and worse may occur in the presence of negligence and it sometimes takes a thorough understanding and review of the medical records to ascertain the truth about what occured to Grandma or Grandpa. My law firm invite all such inquiries.

Categories:
•Recent News,
•Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect,
•Fractures,
•Brain Injury,
•Wrongful Death
Posted by Paul Levin | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Recent News , Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect , Fractures , Brain Injury , Wrongful Death