$4.5 Million Awarded To Mother After The Loss Of Her Baby Because of Delay In Medical Care
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-30 21:55:58 | Word Count: 562
Paramedics are often first responders to medical emergencies. Paramedics are licensed health care providers who owe a duty to meet the standard of care to those they respond to and treat. Their ability to determine symptoms, to make fast and correct decisions as to whether to contact a doctor for guidance, whether to give drugs or treat the person right then and there, and whether to take the patient at once to a hospital, and even which hospital to pick, can literally make all the difference. In what follows we examine a claim in which paramedics answered a call from a woman who had experienced a placental abruption at nearly full term of her pregnancy. By the time the paramedics responded the pregnant woman was already in shock from abrupt loss of blood caused by a placental abruption. The paramedics did not figure out the urgency of the situation and took approximately eighteen minutes prior to taking her to the hospital.
The claim alleged that the failure on the part of the paramedics to act right away resulted in a delay of at least 18 minutes. In this time the baby's oxygen supply was drastically restricted due to the loss of blood from the placental abruption.. The newborn died the day after being delivered. The woman required an additional surgery to control the severe bleeding and she experienced temporary kidney failure due to the blood loss. The law firm that represented the family sued the paramedics for their failure to grasp the pregnant woman's condition and their delay in taking her to the hospital.
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The laws concerning malpractice legal claims for the loss of a newborn differ by State. In the State where this situation arose, for example, in order to be able to recover for the emotional harm suffered by the mother due to the death of her newborn the law firm that represented her had to show that the mother (1) suffered a physical injury that resulted from the same negligence that caused the death of the infant and (2) that such physical injury to the mother would not have ordinarily arisen in a normal childbirth. The mother began suffering from intense depression six months after the death of her baby. The mother was placed on a schedule of therapy and medication. Despite the therapy and medication, however, her depression lasted as of the time of the law firm's report. The mother is expected to require the lifelong use of medication. The mother met those requirements.|All three requisites were fulfilled in this matter.|Given the injuries the mother herself sustained from the delay by the paramedics, she was able to go forward with a lawsuit.
The law firm that handled the case on her behalf reported that they took the case to trial and achieved a verdict of $4.5 million. This case shows that if paramedics cause severe harm by failing to meet the standard of care they may be liable for malpractice.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting birth injury cases. To learn more about placental abruption and other birth injury matters including group b streptococcus visit the websites
