The 36-year-old mother of two children went to the ER in February 2017 where she described having headaches that were ten out of ten on a one to ten pain scale, along with neck stiffness. The PA who saw her in the ER ordered a CT scan, which was reported as negative. She was then sent home…medicalmalpracticelawyers.com, $4.2M Massachusetts Medical Malpractice Verdict For Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, April 2023
The plaintiff alleged in her Massachusetts medical malpractice lawsuit that the standard of care required the PA to order a lumbar puncture based on her symptoms having begun more than six hours prior to her arrival at the ER and therefore the CT scan would be unreliable. The plaintiff also alleged that the PA’s supervising physician never saw the plaintiff and simply signed the PA’s medical report the following day.
Eleven days after the initial ER visit, the plaintiff returned to the ER by ambulance with worsening symptoms that now included nausea, vomiting, and a severe headache. She was initially seen by two nurses when she arrived in the ER. Five hours later, a different PA and a physician saw the plaintiff in the ER. She was diagnosed with an aneurysm but was not sent for a coiling procedure to treat the aneurysm until nine hours later.
By the time the plaintiff was sent for the coiling procedure, her aneurysm had ruptured. Her aneurysm re-ruptured during the coiling procedure, causing complications.
The plaintiff had three experts testify on her behalf during trial (an ER expert, a vascular-neuro expert, and a vocational expert who testified that the plaintiff’s earning capacity loss and future medical expenses totaled $4.5 million).