Posted on 12/12/2004 7:41:28 PM PST by ambrose
Woman Paralyzed From Fainting Spell In Hospital Awarded $2.5 Million
POSTED: 6:22 pm EST December 10, 2004
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- The woman who went for a breast exam and ended up paralyzed won her lawsuit on Friday.
The jury awarded Cynthia Taylor $2.5 million and her husband $500,000.
Four years ago, Taylor went for a mammography at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville.
She fainted and fell, hitting her head. As a result of that head injury, she lost permanent control of half her body.
The jury determined that the hospital was at fault, but not the mammographer who examined Taylor.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
Now, I live in Fayetteville when not in school, and I can tell you that the medical care this hospital provides is not great.
However, I can't see how it's the hospital's fault that this woman fell in such a way as to become paralyzed. I feel bad for her having been paralyzed, but the way she fell is the fault of gravity.
If you've ever had a mammogram, you'd understand why she passed out! ouch, they hurt.
Gaaaad
My wife says they are all administered by sadists.
Jury: Twelve minimum-wagers given the opportunity to write multi-million dolar checks.
General note: We don't know the whole story, aside from what she alleges and the fact that the jury found the hospital but not the mammographer liable.
It is possible that she was sitting or standing in a device which was intended to have safety padding or harness, and the hospital negligently removed it. It is possible that the hospital let somebody negligently dump other equipment nearby, which she hit when she fell. It is possible that it is standard procedure that a nurse must be attending patients at all times during the mammogram in case they faint, and that this hospital had decided to ignore the policy to save money.
The point is, we don't know.
So I guess when women and Michael Moore gets a mamma-gram they now have to wear a helmet.
in a properly administered mammogram, the vise-grip upon your breast is so tight that you would be held upright if you fainted. ;-)
Egads! Is THAT what I have to look forward to? *shudder*
I had heard that they are painful, but I didn't know that.
kidding. sort of. just try not to go at a tender time. the worst part is when they keep urging you to jam the shelf thingy into your ribcage or armpit. "just a little closer now, closer, closer, get right up there, ok now hoooold it!"
Ouch! I bet you end up with a big old bruise, too. And to think people still read them wrong. Ick. I am not looking forward to those days.
My brothers and I were all born in that hospital, and we all turned out fine. Stuff happens in hospitals -- it's not like they shoved her down a flight of stairs or anything...
lol
Jury sympathy award. Happens all the time. We pay for it with higher insurance rates and higher medical costs.
And we pay for it by having more and more radiologists dropping mammography from their practices, and more and more OB/GYN's dropping the OB part of their practices and neurosurgeons and trauma surgeons abandoning practice in certain geographic areas such as Las Vegas, Nevada.
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