Multiple Amputee Wins $17.9 Million Settlement

A three-year legal battle has ended in a $17.9 million settlement, though the money is nothing in comparison to the woman’s loss.

The facts here are absolutely tragic. In 2008, a now 35-year-old mother of two presented to a New York emergency room. She was diagnosed with a kidney stone and sent home with some painkillers. The next day, still in agonizing pain, she called 911 not once, but twice. The local medics did not take her back to the hospital.

On the following day, now two days out, her fiancé rushed her to the hospital. By this time, she had developed a sepsis infection that had spread through her body. She lapsed into a coma, and gangrene spread to her extremities. She awoke to having had both hands and feet amputated, and the loss of her sight in one eye.

The hospital, who still maintains that they provided excellent care, chose to settle “because a sympathetic jury would have been swayed by her profound injuries.” Wow, really? You think? A thirty-five-year-old mother will spend the rest of her life needing the aid of high-tech prosthetics to perform the simplest of tasks, like brushing her hair, not to mention the loss of sight in one eye, but the hospital is concerned that a jury might be swayed. Unreal. I applaud their concern.

The hospital and two doctors are responsible for $9.4 million of the settlement, with the city responsible for the remaining $8.5 million.