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Overdosing Nurse Sued by Patient who Receives Brain Injury

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An alleged overdose of post-operative pain medications led a patient to file a law suit against his nurse and her employers. The man suffered and anoxic brain injury after the overdose led him to code. He had been recovering after arthroscopic surgery. The judgment awarded him $126,500.

The man and his wife sued the Registered Nurse, Interim Health Care Staffing of North Louisiana, and Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, Louisiana. The plaintiffs alleged that the nurse did not meet standards of care in her treatment of the post-op patient.

As the man recovered from rotator cuff surgery at Glenwood Medical Center in June of 2001, he received a dosage of IV Demerol. He was then transferred from the operation room to a recovery room and assigned to the above mentioned RN, a contract nurse employed by Interim.

The doctor’s orders, visible on the patient’s chart, called for the nurse to monitor, for 30 minutes, the patient’s vital signs and to look for any signs of respiration depression. The orders also outlined the dosage of additional pain relievers.

A Lawyer reports that the family’s allegations against the nurse said that she gave the man too much medicine too soon, not in compliance with the doctor’s orders. The overdose was evidenced when he coded, lost his pulse and respirations ceased. CPR was immediately started along with intubation. The patient had to be moved to ICU where he was placed on a ventilator. His hospital stay was lengthened to 5 days.

The report says that when the man returned home, he noticed memory loss, which is reported to his family doctor. The family physician ordered EEG and MRI tests which ended up showing that the man had suffered an anoxic brain injury. The patient and his wife blame the post-op overmedication for the brain injury.

The plaintiff was awarded $116,000 for “pain, suffering, mental anguish, emotional trauma and medical expenses,” almost 10 years after the negligence, April 2010. The plaintiff’s wife was awarded an additional $10,000 for loss of consortium. In Manhattan and Brooklyn, hospitals are aware of this outcome.

If a medical professional is careless or unskilled, and their improper care leads to injury, contact a New York Injury Medical Malpractice Attorney who will aid you in seeking compensation from the malpracticing physicians, nurses, or other staff.

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