McKeen and Associates attorneys Brian McKeen and Todd Schroeder recently settled a case for $3,250,000 on behalf of an athlete who suffered a spinal cord injury due to physician negligence. The young man experienced a hemothorax– an accumulation of blood within the chest – a not uncommon occurrence for those on anticoagulants.
A hospital physician appropriately concluded that the bleeding was due to being over-anticoagulated. Once the patient stopped taking the anticoagulant the bleeding stopped.
Despite the bleeding having stopped, another physician intervened and negligently concluded that he should embolize (permanently clog) an artery in this patient’s chest. This physician not only embolized an artery in the chest, but also clogged a critical spinal cord artery in the process.
When this patient awoke from the embolization procedure, he no longer had sensation in his lower extremities and now this former hockey player faces a lifetime of disability.
