Silverman Thompson Recovers $4M on Behalf of Disabled Father of Three Children

Silverman Thompson Attorneys Andrew G. Slutkin and Jamison G. White recently settled a medical malpractice case for $4 million on behalf of a 48 year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury following his health care providers’ failure to timely diagnose and treat a herniated disk in his neck that was pressing on his spinal cord. In the lawsuit, the man alleged that he initially presented to a hospital’s emergency room with a week-long history of excruciating neck pain, tingling in his arm and recent weakness in his leg. Despite these clear warning signs that the spinal cord was being compressed, and the added knowledge that the man had failed pain medications and steroids that his orthopedic surgeon had prescribed just a few days earlier, the health care provider in the emergency room dismissed his concerns, diagnosed him with a muscle strain and sent him home.

Just three hours later, while at home, the man suddenly developed weakness in both his arms and legs. He was subsequently transported to a second hospital where health care providers failed, over the next 5 hours, to take him for an emergent MRI, the only radiology study that would have confirmed or ruled out a spinal cord injury. Once an MRI was eventually performed later that evening, it confirmed the presence of a large herniated disk compressing the man’s spinal cord. Shockingly, despite this clear danger to the man, the neurosurgeon who was contacted chose not to come into the hospital that evening to perform surgery to remove the disk and decompress the spinal cord. Overnight, the man’s weakness progressed to complete and irreversible spinal cord injury.