(via White Coat and Kevin MD)
I was incredulous to read about the case of the EMT service sued for negligence for transporting a pregnant woman to a tertiary care center in Florida. The woman went into labor in the ambulance and the heroic paramedics had to deliver a breeched 25 week-old baby and then resuscitate him en route to the hospital. The boy lived but ended up with cerebral palsy secondary to prolonged hypoxia during the delivery. The doctors and hospitals had both settled the case for $1.4 million. The EMT company didn’t feel it needed to settle, thinking there was no way they could lose at trial. They lost. And the verdict was for 10 million buckaroos.
Apparently, the plaintiffs attorney was able to successfully argue that the paramedics ought to have performed a thorough, independent evaluation of the pregnant mother prior to departure and then refused to transport her; in essence, they should have overruled the judgment of the physicians involved in the case. And they also ought to have resuscitated the child as well as any tertiary care NICU. Even though they weren’t physicians. While in a speeding ambulance.
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Dr. Jeffrey Parks Website Dr. Jeffrey Parks is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.
But we don’t need tort reform, right?
Dr. Jeffrey Parks is a board certified general surgeon working in Cleveland who writes regularly at Buckeye Surgeon.
