$900,000.00 - Pain Injection causes Spinal Cord Injury

Sansone & Lauber | | Verdicts & Settlements

Medical malpractice lawsuit our injury lawyers filed in St. Louis, Missouri settled for over $900,000. The injured Plaintiff was seen by a St. Louis doctor who performed a cervical nerve root block, also referred to as pain injections. Within fifteen minutes of the procedure she was left partially paralyzed, fortunately, she has mostly recovered from her paralysis and was able to return to her full time job.

The negligent doctor caused tour client to suffer partial paralysis by allowing the medicine to get into an artery because of a dangerous and negligent technique the doctor used.

  1. the dosage of the pain medication steroid was double the recommended amount;
  2. the operative technique was negligent as did not use tubing between the syringe and needle to minimize needle movement; and
  3. the basic placement of the needle before the injection was in a dangerous location.

See “Missouri Medical Negligence – Cervical Pain Injection Hits an Artery – Med Mal causes Depo Medrol to go into Spinal Cord and Brain – Spinal Cord Injury and Brain Injury resulting in Partial Paralysis”.

Despite our injured client’s neurological deficits, she missed only a few months of work and was able to return to her job full time within months of the spinal cord injury. She suffered  $200,000 in medical bills as a result of the injury and luckily no lost wages from work. Generally, arterial invasion by a steroid results in devastating injuries and death, our client was lucky that her injuries were relatively minor.

One of the essential requirements to successfully pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit is retaining a good medical expert. Not only do you need an expert to testify regarding liability or negligence (violation of the medical standard of care), but before a Missouri medical negligence lawsuit can even be filed you must have a certificate of merit under Missouri Statute 538.225 or else the medical malpractice lawsuit will be dismissed.

St. Louis personal injury lawyer Ben Sansone is an experienced Missouri injury trial lawyer practicing in all areas of personal injury including brain injury and doctor malpractice.