An unfortunate case of medical malpractice left the patient dead and the patient’s closest living family member, his grandmother, taking legal action against the medical team responsible for the fatal error.
The incident occurred when the young man went in to get some testing done on his intestines. He had complained of digestive issues and pain in his abdomen. What doctors found was a bowel obstruction, one that was caused by a malignant tumor. But when the doctors were doing the tests to discover this malignant tumor, they punctured the man’s colon. Just a day after this test an error occurred, the man passed away as a result of the complications from the botched test.
The man’s grandmother is filing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of the deceased, and she is requesting an unspecified amount in damages.
There are a couple of things to learn from this story, and the first is a reminder about timing with medical malpractice lawsuits and the “type” of lawsuit someone would file. In this case, wrongful death rules and provisions could rule over the case even though it was a medical error that caused it. Knowing how these rules affect the case and the potential justice you may obtain is important.
The other factor here is the simplicity in which a testing procedure can go oh so wrong. While the bowel test may not have been simple, it is still something that highly trained professionals should be able to perform without causing a catastrophic error. The evidence in this case will likely focus on the medical professional’s inability to perform the test without meeting the standards of care.
Source: Louisiana Record, “Medical malpractice claim filed against Ochsner, doctors over patient’s death,” Kyle Barnett, July 21, 2015
