This medical malpractice matter dealt with the failure to timely diagnose and treat an obstructed bile duct in a 69-year-old-Brooklyn woman, leading to her death from sepsis.
The decedent was an immuno-compromised, at-risk patient, with multiple co-morbidities including obesity, diabetes, and end stage renal failure requiring dialysis. In the summer of 2014 she developed diarrhea, which was initially treated with over-the-counter medication. When abdominal pain began, she consulted with the defendant gastroenterologist.
The parties agreed that the decedent needed a specialized blood test* due to a possible bile duct obstruction. The defendants claim that the decedent was instructed to get the blood test when she next went for dialysis, but there is no record of such an order from either his office or the dialysis center. Her husband, who was present for the visit, denies any such order was given to his wife for the blood test.
Subsequently the decedent went to the emergency room of a Brooklyn hospital when her distress increased, and the specialized test was done, but a second defendant doctor didn’t know the significance of the test and sent her home.
When a CT scan was finally done two days later, it revealed infected gallstones blocking the patient’s biliary duct causing severe infection, from which she died.
The decedent left surviving an adult son and eight grandchildren.
It settled at a pre-trial mediation for $510,000 in May 2024.
Eric Turkewitz was trial counsel to the Law Office of Michael M Bast, P.C.
*The specialized blood test is called an Icteric index, which would reveal an excess of bilirubin in the blood. It is a sign of a bile duct obstruction.
Other wrongful death cases handled by the Turkewitz Firm:
$7M– Bronx Medical Malpractice Brain Damage During Childbirth and Subsequent Wrongful Death
Settlement for mother brain damaged during childbirth, who subsequently died (2015).
$550K – Nursing Home Negligence – Broken Hoyer lift.
The sling seat of a Hoyer lift broke, dropping a 70-year-old nursing home resident to the ground in 2016, with numerous fractures and death a year later. Settled March 2022 during trial.
$400K – Queens Medical Malpractice — Hernia Repair, Lacerated Liver, and Ruptured Spleen — Failure To Properly Type Blood — Wrongful Death
Settlement, mid-trial (1997), for the family of a 56-year-old Queens seamstress who bled to death during surgery when her liver was negligently lacerated (in New York, one can not be compensated for grief, only for monetary loss and pain and suffering).
$285K – Westchester Hospital Malpractice – Doctor Error – Wrongful Death
Hospital malpractice and doctor error when catheter placed in carotid artery instead of jugular vein, causing wrongful death of 87-year-old Westchester man
