Washington DC Personal Injury Law Blog

The expected arrival of a new baby should be a happy and joyous time in a family's life. However, there is nothing more devastating to parents than learning their newborn baby has suffered life-changing birth injuries due to the negligence of others. In Washington, D.C., and other states, medical professionals are being held accountable for a negligent delivery.

Recently, a woman filed a lawsuit alleging negligence after her daughter was born. She claims she was admitted to an area hospital with preterm contractions, nausea and vomiting but was released only to return a few weeks later to give birth to her daughter. Upon delivery, the child's Apgar scores were two, four, seven and one after 10-minute intervals. The baby was still not breathing properly and suffered several periods of apnea. She was later transferred to a NICU hospital where she remained for 27 days.

An 87-year-old cancer patient was the victim of a recent opioid overdose in a hospital and needed to be revived with Narcan and CPR. The woman had recently undergone cancer surgery and was being administered Dilaudid, a powerful drug used to control pain. She repeatedly asked hospital personnel whether the drug being administered to her would hurt her. The nursing staff assured her she would be fine. In Washington, D.C. and other states, medication errors are becoming more common.

After the initial surgery, the woman needed additional emergency surgery to repair damage to her bowel. The son claims that the situation was horrendous. The doctors and hospital did not know if the opioid overdose had any effect on her recovery. The president of the hospital apologized to the family and covered the cost of her medical bills. Her son reported the hospital and the incident to the state's Health Department.

People in Washington, D.C. who take the Rock Creek Parkway to work likely encountered backups recently as the result of a serious vehicle crash that shut down the major commuter corridor. A portion of the parkway was closed for hours as emergency personnel responded to the car accident, which sent four people to the hospital, three with critical injuries. Whenever people experience serious injuries as the result of car accidents, they may be able to recover damages by proving negligence on the part of one or more of the drivers involved.

The accident occurred around 6:30 in the morning on Thursday, March 29 near the P Street connector. The crash involved two vehicles, and emergency responders had to extricate three victims who became trapped in their car as a result of the collision. Each of these three victims suffered critical injuries and were taken to the hospital while a fourth was treated at a local hospital for injuries described as minor.

People in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere naturally assume their doctors will do everything possible to diagnose their conditions properly in order to begin the required treatment in a timely fashion. While this occurs in the majority of cases, there are times when a delayed diagnosis causes irreparable harm to the patient, sometimes leading to his or her untimely passing. When this happens, the patients or their surviving loved ones can pursue justice against any negligent physicians or health care providers to try to recover both economic and non-economic damages.

Such was the case with a woman in another state whose husband died after suffering from liver cancer that had gone undetected for some time. Apparently, the man's three physicians disregarded recommendations by at least two different radiologists that the man needed MRIs to check for underlying cancer. However, the patient had a history of health issues and was seeing his doctors for treatment for hepatitis C, cirrhosis, anemia and other conditions. In fact, one of the defendant doctors actually stated in a pretrial memo that the 65-year-old man had already outlived his life expectancy considering the number of medical conditions from which he was suffering.