When a doctor in Pennsylvania is trusted to properly treat a problem but ends up making the problem worse, this medical professional may be held accountable through the legal system. One logger in a different state said his spinal injury was not properly treated, which caused him to become a paraplegic. He chose to sue three doctors, and he and his wife were recently awarded more than $2 million for his medical malpractice case.
The couple said that doctors at a hospital did not correctly examine the man after a tree weighing 500 pounds slammed onto his back in 2012. The man said he was in so much pain that he could not lie down for a complete spinal X-ray set. Doctors were able to produce an incomplete X-ray set, but this set did not detect a spinal fracture, which eventually left him paralyzed.
The man and his wife said a CT scan should have been ordered instead. The man was kept in the hospital for three days and then sent home, where he was in pain for two days. He was eventually taken back to a hospital, at which point he was already paralyzed from his chest down. The man said that had his spinal injury been diagnosed correctly, he would still be walking.
The jury awarded the man damages related to past pain and suffering totaling $300,000. He was also awarded damages related to future pain and suffering totaling $1.7 million. His wife and caretaker additionally received $200,000 for her suffering in the medical malpractice case. It is within the rights of a patient who has been hurt by a doctor in Pennsylvania due to negligence to seek to hold him or her financially responsible for the harm he or she has caused.