Imagine visiting your doctor for a routine procedure and leaving marred or disabled. Unfortunately for one woman in Columbus, Georgia, something like this happened when she visited St. Francis Hospital for a “common neck surgery that ended up leaving her disabled.” As a result of the botched surgery, the woman, Sandra Williams, “filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against St. Francis Hospital for the end result of her neck surgery.” Fortunately for her, a jury ruled in her favor and decided that “St. Francis and its surgeons were 100 percent at fault.” As a result, St. Francis must now pay Williams $26 million dollars. So what happened?
Imagine visiting your doctor for a routine procedure and leaving marred or disabled. Unfortunately for one woman in Columbus, Georgia, something like this happened when she visited St. Francis Hospital for a “common neck surgery that ended up leaving her disabled.” As a result of the botched surgery, the woman, Sandra Williams, “filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against St. Francis Hospital for the end result of her neck surgery.” Fortunately for her, a jury ruled in her favor and decided that “St. Francis and its surgeons were 100 percent at fault.” As a result, St. Francis must now pay Williams $26 million dollars. So what happened?
Well, back in October of 2012, Williams decided to undergo a neck surgery shortly after running in a 5k. The routine neck fusion surgery went well, though the “following day she couldn’t swallow,” according to her attorney, Lloyd Bell. In fact, “the day after her surgery she went to complain about trouble swallowing.” According to Bell, right after the surgery, there was what looked like a “pretty large bubble sitting on Williams’ windpipe, causing her to have trouble swallowing.” However, her doctor, Erik Westerlund, didn’t do anything about it at the time because Williams “had not complained about any breathing problems.” Unfortunately, the swallowing issue remained through the night and her swelling grew more intense, so she returned to the hospital to have it looked at on October 20th.
According to Bell, when she arrived at the hospital’s emergency room, “her neck was swollen, she couldn’t swallow, she had pain, she had gurgling noise when she tried to swallow…she couldn’t swallow her own saliva.” To make matter worse, she had to wait a long time to see her doctor. In fact, according to the lawsuit, it was into the third day after the surgery that she was finally seen by Dr. Westerlund. It’s important to note, though, that “hospital policy requires doctors to see a patient within two hours.”
During the two-week-long trial, the plaintiffs put a doctor who had “more than 20 years of surgical experience” on the stand to explain what he would have done in Williams’ case. According to the doctor, Dr. Lawrence Schlacter, he would have “intervened sooner, not wait until the breathing gets in trouble… there’s almost a 100 percent chance that the patient will go home and be fine.”
While Williams was enthusiastic about the settlement announcement, she was permanently disabled by the procedure. Discussing his client’s condition, Bell said, “Sandy is now blind, she’s restricted to a wheelchair, she’s got very little function in her legs, she has a hard time grasping with her hands.” He added that she “now needs around the clock care as she is no longer independent. They say all the years of singing at her church and enjoying a run all came to an end because of this incident. It’s safe to say Williams hasn’t had it easy also losing her husband through all of this. But through it all we’re told Williams continues to smile and hold her head high.”
At the moment, St. Francis does not intend to appeal the jury’s decision.
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