On May 13, a jury awarded Rosalyn James $2.185 million in a Philadelphia medical malpractice suit against St. Joseph’s Hospital and two emergency-room physicians. Her husband, Zachary James, died at the North Philadelphia hospital when his heart stopped beating on April 20, 2006.
According to this article in the Philadelphia Daily News, Mrs. James filed a lawsuit claiming her husband’s death may have been preventable if someone had just looked at his X-rays before he died.
James, 51, began experiencing chest, back, and leg pains on April 20. He called 9-1-1 and was transported to St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia. James was seen by the attending emergency-room physician, Dr. Thomas Powell, within a half hour, who ordered several lab tests, including X-rays and echocardiograms, but it took almost two hours for some of the tests to be performed.
Powell left the hospital to attend a corporate meeting, leaving a physician who was serving his first day on the job at St. Joseph’s. The emergency-room physician did not review the X-rays before they were sent to radiology, as per hospital procedure.
Zachary James died at 7:05 on April 20 from a dissecting aortic aneurysm, a condition in which blood gets between the layers of the aorta wall and fills up the sac surrounding the heart, constricting it until it's unable to pump. The X-rays and other tests would have revealed this condition before James had to suffer a wrongful death in Pennsylvania.
According to the article, the hospital and doctors pursued two defenses at trial. One was that Zachary James had a history of hypertension and “chronic noncompliance” in taking his blood-pressure medication.
The other was that quickly identifying James’ condition still may not have allowed enough time to properly transfer him to another hospital where the necessary surgery could have been performed. The defense argued that he was never given the opportunity to survive and the jury found both doctors and the hospital liable.
When a patient like Zachary James has been treated with substandard care by a doctor or healthcare provider and has suffered an injury or disability as a result, the patient has been the victim of medical malpractice. Misdiagnosis, failure to diagnose, surgical errors, prescription drug errors, birth injuries, failure to treat diseases, delay in treatment, and negligence are just a few examples of medical malpractice. People of all ages are at risk for medical malpractice, including children, adults, and the elderly.
Medical malpractice is a distressing situation, and the Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyers at Cherry, Fieger, and Marciano, LLP, will make the process as simple as possible for you. If you or a loved one has been the victim of medical malpractice in Pennsylvania, please contact Cherry, Fieger, and Marciano, LLP today for a free consultation with a skilled Pennsylvania medical malpractice attorney.