Wichita Man Suffers Preventable Brain Injury
from Post Operative Stroke:
Health Care "Team" Cannot Agree on What Happened
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Who said what to whom and when? Those were the big questions the three defendants could not answer. Exactly how this tragedy occurred will never be known for certain, but the case theme was clear - the health care team dropped the ball, communication was terrible all around, and no one's story made sense. Each of the defendants eventually contributed toward the total settlement of $1,600,000. Vic Bergman and Steve Six represented our client. Gary (last name withheld) went to a Wichita Hospital on the morning of August 12, 1996 for a carotid endarterectomy procedure, by a vascular surgeon, to remove atherosclerotic plaque from his right carotid artery. The |
surgery went well enough, and Gary was sent to the recovery room for observation. The recovery room nurse did a detailed assessment, and found that Gary's left arm was weak, with abnormal sensation. The anesthesiologist on call assessed Gary for discharge from the recovery room and, seeing nothing abnormal, transferred him to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU). On admission to the SICU the nurse recorded that Gary still had the left upper extremity numbness and sensory deficit, but he also had a number of new neurologic deficits. Gary's mental status had slipped from drowsy to lethargic, he developed slurred speech, and his weakness now extended to the left leg; and later in the day he developed a change in pupil size and his eyes looked in different directions. Finally, at three o'clock in the morning - more than 16 hours after the first observation of the neurologic abnormalities - direct communication between an SICU nurse and the vascular surgeon was documented for the first time. A CT scan of the brain was obtained rapidly, which demonstrated that a massive completed stroke had occurred and it was too late to do anything. The medical evidence established that when a stroke occurs after a carotid endarterectomy procedure it can be treated with a high likelihood of success within the first four hours or so after the onset of symptoms. With timely |
treatment, the chance for avoiding significant neurologic injury is very high, greater than 60%, and even higher in a number of studies. Two vascular surgeons who gave depositions for the plaintiff said that Gary's injury would likely have been prevented had there been communication among the members of the health care team during the first hours after the onset of the symptoms, when surgical re-exploration could still have been performed. There was no question that the post-operative neurologic symptoms occurred, be-cause they were documented, but the testimony by the various healthcare providers |
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