A medication error has led to an infant girl developing cerebral palsy and her family being awarded $17.8 million from a jury.
We’ll talk about the case in this issue.
The Case at a Glance
Just four days after the girl was born, she was transferred to a hospital to treat a “fairly common heart defect.”
However, just before the procedure was to begin, she was given the wrong dosage of prostaglandin, a hormone used to relax muscles. The dosage caused her to go into cardiac arrest while on the operating table.
It was 33 minutes before medical personnel could resuscitate her. By that time, she suffered a severe hypoxic ischemic brain injury, which resulted in cerebral palsy and other conditions.
Today, the girl is seven-years-old but is functioning at the level of a three or four-year-old, according to the family’s lawyer.
The jury agreed that the wrong dosage was the direct cause for the young girl’s injuries.
How easy is it for doctors and nurses to give wrong dosage?
Sadly, it’s shockingly easy to administer the wrong amount of a medication. For example, if any of the medical personnel misses a decimal point, the patient could be given ten or a hundred times too much or too little of the medication.
Added to that is the fact that different medications need to be administered in different ways. A shot given in the wrong place, for example, can lead to serious complications.
How Does Brain Hypoxia Lead to Cerebral Palsy?
There’s no single known cause of cerebral palsy. Rather, it’s actually a group of varied conditions that affect body movement control.
For the young girl in the unfortunate incident described above, her cerebral palsy was caused by the brain hypoxia. In such cases when brain cells are deprived of enough oxygen, they may die…some in as little of 5 minutes.
Call The Fitzgerald Law Firm if Your Child Experienced a Birth Injury
If your child experienced a birth injury, we want to talk with you about your options. We’ll investigate your case and aggressively pursue compensation to help cover medical treatments, in-home care, rehab, surgery and other needs.
The first consultation is always free, so call The Fitzgerald Law Firm at 800-323-9900.