Recently, we tried a medical negligence and malpractice case in Jasper County against a local doctor and nurse practitioner. Our client is a local man who sought treatment at their clinic for a strained right index finger. When they injected his finger with a steroid, they did so in the wrong location towards the end of the finger instead of at the base of it. This filled his finger with fluid that had nowhere to go. The pressure this fluid created compressed the vessels and restricted blood flow almost immediately. Before he ever left their clinic his finger was already turning purple, numb, and cold.
His medical providers had caused a condition known as āischemia.āĀ Ischemia is when there is reduced blood and oxygen flow to tissue.Ā Ischemia is a medical emergency that should be treated urgently to correct it by restoring blood flow.Ā If ischemia goes uncorrected long enough, it will cause irreversible tissue death (necrosis).
Over the next two weeks, our client sent his providers 93 text and picture messages keeping them updated about his worsening finger and even having a few follow-up appointments. They continued to give him false reassurance that it would get better on its own, overlooking what was an obvious ischemic medical emergency.Ā At first, they said his numbness and discoloration was caused by the lidocaine from his injection.Ā The next day, they claimed his discoloration was merely bruising from the injection.Ā During the two weeks of follow-up he had with them, they never once diagnosed him with ischemia even though he was presenting with classic signs of it. By the time he got to see a specialist two weeks later, his finger was past the point of no return.Ā It was dead and had to be amputated.
At trial, the defense tried to blame our client. They doctored their medical records to ADD statements to make him look like they were the ones actually concerned about his worsening finger and that he was being non-compliant. Using the text messages which could not be edited, we were able to show the jury that the non-compliance statements were added after-the-fact to create a false narrative about our client and to hide the defendants’ medical negligence. We also showed where they removed factual findings from their records that showed the full extent of his finger compromise, essentially trying to whitewash the record.
On top of their medical negligence and attempted cover-up, we showed that the nurse practitioner who performed the injection was unqualified to do so.Ā She had never performed one before.Ā In fact, before she injected our client, she referenced a general pain management textbook in the back of the office to try to figure out what to do.Ā In doing so, the textbook actually said where to perform the injection correctly, but she failed to follow it.Ā Instead of giving the injection at the base of the finger like her own textbook said, she gave it towards the end of the finger.Ā The nurse practitioner admitted at trial that she had no idea that there was a risk of causing ischemia in a finger by injecting too much fluid into the end of the finger.Ā All medical providers said awareness of this risk is general medical knowledge and that a provider has no business doing finger injections if they donāt know this basic fact.Ā Because she didnāt know about this risk, the defendant doctor and the defendantās own hired expert had to admit that she was unqualified to perform the injection.
By the end of it, the jury was so convinced that they came back with a unanimous verdict in 40 minutes, which is extremely fast for this kind of case. They found the doctor 60% negligent and the nurse practitioner 40% negligent. Before trial, the insurance company offered $10,000. The jury awarded $1,246,096.
Medical malpractice often goes unreported.Ā If you feel like you have been injured because of medical negligence, give us a call at 409-838-6000.Ā We may be able to help.