My First Lawsuit

Since everyone else seems to be discussing their suits, I might as well join the fun. I was halfway through my first year as full-time faculty in the Emergency Center when the transfer came in. He was a young man of around 30 who had overdosed on tricyclic antipressants in a suicide attempt, apparently distraught over his recent legal troubles and his alienation from his mother, who had kicked him out of her house.

He had already been seen at another emergency department and been given activated charcoal at that facility; he was transferred to our tertiary care center because of his deteriorating condition (and lack of funds, surely). When he arrived, he was comatose and so I intubated him immediately. We drew some blood, got a chest X-ray and an ECG, started a bicarb drip, and sent him up to the ICU. Pretty straightforward, from my standpoint.

So when the "big envelope" was personally handed to me by the constable almost exactly two years later, I didn't even remember the guy at first. So off to medical records I went. The first thing I noticed was that he died two weeks after admission...of a bowel obstruction/perforation which had led to peritonitis and sepsis. He had reportedly developed a swollen thigh while in the ICU, and the team caring for him thought he might have a deep venous thrombosis. When the doppler was negative, the patient was started on antibiotics, but he continued to deteriorate and died a few days later. The surgical consultants failed to appreciate the obstruction and perforation.

His autopsy showed fecal material and charcoal in the tissues of the thigh, which had tracked downwards adjacent to the femoral vessels after the bowel perforated. Eventually, I was dropped from the suit along with several other of the defendants who were sprayed by the shotgun blast from an eager attorney. I never even had to give a deposition. I'm not sure if the surgeons or hospital were as fortunate.

The language in the lawsuit struck me as ironic, however. It was the patient's mother who had filed suit, and her attorney claimed that the patient "was a loving and dutiful child who provided (her) with joy, happiness, and anticipation of all the pleasures that a child can provide to parent, as well as the anticipation of care, counsel, advice, nurture, guidance, and affection."

Sheesh. He freaking killed himself because she kicked him out of her house after his latest arrest, and he was facing a long prison term. There was more crap in that statement than there ever was in his thigh. I wonder what attorneys malpractice attorneys smell like when they are autopsied. (changed in conciliation to the anonymous commenter)