Hospital Malpractice – Doctor Error – Wrongful Death

SETTLEMENT: This wrongful death and hospital malpractice action settled for $285,000 in 2006.

Facts:

The actions arose in January 2004 when a hospital resident intended to place a catheter into the patient’s left internal jugular vein, but made an error and placed it in his left carotid artery. The patient was 87 at the time. The doctor failed to recognize the error. Despite emergency surgery that evening at the hospital to remove the catheter and repair the artery, the patient died. Plaintiff’s medical malpractice attorney alleged that the doctor’s error in placing the catheter into the artery was a cause of his death that very night.

Defendant claimed that placing the catheter into the artery instead of the vein is a risk of the procedure. Plaintiff countered that, if it was a risk of the procedure, then the doctor had an obligation to check the blood to insure that the catheter was properly placed.