South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

The family of a one-year-old baby who was left severely brain damaged as a result of medical negligence in an army hospital was awarded $16.5 million for their losses and suffering.

Izzy Peterson was born healthy in January 2005 before a doctor mistakenly gave him what she thought was oxygen to boost his breathing. However, for about 41 minutes, Izzy was inhaling carbon dioxide, which slowly made its mark on his newborn body.

“It’s an unbelievable tragedy,” said Rick Fried, the family’s lawyer. “His brain has been wiped out by the carbon dioxide.”

Now the one-year-old requires around-the-clock professional care, cannot breath on his own, and eats through a tube in his stomach. Izzy is expected to die before his thirtieth birthday.

Details of the Lawsuit

The child’s parents filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Tripler Army Medical Center, claiming that their son’s condition was a direct result of “gross negligence” on the part of the doctor.

The government admitted fault and the suit, which went to trial in August, focused only on the amount of compensation that should be awarded.

District Judge David Ezra found the hospital liable for the damages and ordered the federal government to pay $16.5 million in damages to the child’s family. The compensation award is one of the largest ever given to a single individual in a personal injury case in Hawaii.

The verdict includes $12.4 million for future life and medical care expenses in addition to $1.5 for loss of future income capacity.

In July 1996, plaintiff Anthony Crisanti, 58, a self-employed tailor, underwent removal of his prostate gland. He subsequently developed mild incontinence and sexual dysfunction.In May 1999, Crisanti developed urine backup and was not able to urinate. Dr. Howard Adler determined that the urinary dysfunction was a product of a bladder-neck stricture that was a result of the 1996 surgery.On May 12, 1999, Adler performed a cystopic procedure to relieve the stricture. During the surgery, Adler determined that Crisanti had developed a suspended bladder stone that was causing the blockage. Adler shattered and flushed the stone. However, the stone was hanging from a section of suture material that had eroded through a tissue wall that was created during the prostate-removal surgery. In an effort to remove the suture material, Adler removed tissue from the bladder neck. Following the surgery, Crisanti developed total incontinence.

Crisanti sued Adler and two other surgeons who assisted Adler, Drs. Wellman Cheung and Albert Kim. Crisanti alleged that the defendants failed to properly perform the May 1999 surgery, that Adler failed to obtain informed consent to the surgery, and that the failures constituted medical malpractice.

Cheung was never served, and Crisanti did not pursue the case against him. Crisanti also discontinued the claim against Kim. The matter proceeded to a trial against Adler.

Crisanti claimed that he did not provide consent for Adler’s removal of the suture material. He acknowledged that he consented to Adler’s opening of the blockage, but he contended that he was never informed of the risks that were associated with the material’s removal. He claimed that he would not have approved the suture-material’s removal if he had known that it would have produced a significant risk of incontinence. The form did not identify incontinence as a risk.

Plaintiff’s counsel also claimed the procedure was not properly performed and that there was no need to remove tissue in the bladder neck. Crisanti’s expert urologist opined that, once the stone was flushed and the blockage had been removed, Adler should have stopped the surgery, revived Crisanti, and then discussed the next course of treatment.

Adler contended that the he exercised good and accepted medical judgment by immediately removing the suture material. Defense counsel argued that Crisanti had read and signed a consent form that permitted Adler’s use of his best medical judgment. Adler’s expert urologists opined that the injury was a known risk of the procedure that Adler performed, and they contended that the suture material was appropriately removed.

Crisanti sustained damage of his bladder neck. He has undergone five collagen injections, but the injections were not successful, and he suffers total incontinence. He also underwent five procedures for the installation of artificial sphincters that enable him to urinate.

Crisanti claimed that his condition is permanent and that it causes great embarrassment. He sought recovery of a total of $1.2 million for his past and future pain and suffering. His wife sought recovery of damages for her loss of consortium.

The jury rendered a defense verdict. It found that Adler did not depart from accepted care standards.

A police officer has filed a lawsuit against the Waffle House restaurant chain and one of its former cooks, claiming the cook admitted to spitting in the officer’s food.Police Lt. John Morgan accused 19-year-old Homer Disher in the lawsuit of spitting in his order of hash browns and eggs before serving them to him last September.

“He had his back slightly to me, and I saw the spit hit the food,” Morgan said. “I was furious.”

The lawsuit seeks $82,500. In court papers, Morgan said Disher told his manager what he had done and the manager did nothing to warn Morgan or report the incident to police.

Morgan said he brought an investigating officer to the restaurant and that Disher admitted to spitting in his food and gave a recorded video statement to the officers.

Morgan said he thought Disher was upset over a warning he gave Disher and a friend during a traffic stop a few weeks before the incident.

Phone numbers for Disher and the manager on duty that day could not be found in listings. Calls to Waffle House headquarters in Norcross, Ga., were not immediately returned Sunday.

Disher has been charged with adulteration of food and retaliation for past actions, both felonies. If convicted, he could face up to eight years in prison, the Southern Standard newspaper reported.

A commuter train heading into Boston struck a flatbed truck that had bottomed out on a railroad crossing, injuring 19 people Monday morning, authorities said.The driver of the truck, which was hauling construction equipment, had walked up the tracks to try to warn the approaching train, but the engineer was unable to stop in time, said Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Construction equipment on the truck swung around when the train hit and smashed into one of the passenger coaches and another nearby vehicle.

Eighteen people and the engineer, who warned passengers to brace for impact, were hurt in the 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) crash, he said. Most had been released from hospitals by afternoon.

“The crossing is at a slight incline. The low-bed truck bottomed out and became stuck on the tracks,” Pesaturo said. He said a sign warned that such trucks shouldn’t attempt that crossing.

Transit police and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.

Franklin is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Boston.

According to a study released by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the benefits of some anti-psychotic drugs like Zyprexa do not outweigh the risks. Although prescribed almost routinely – about 75% of the 4.5 million Alzheimer’s sufferers in the U.S. take some form of anti-psychotic, according to at least one estimate – they are often not effective, and have serious side effects including sudden death.