NYC Woman Loses Hands, Feet In Hospital 'Mistake'

WCBS TV (Via Drudge) ^ | Nov. 21, 2008 | John Slattery

[Michael.SF.]

NEW YORK (CBS) ― She was a vibrant young mother who went to a Brooklyn hospital for what she thought was a kidney stone. She wound up leaving without her hands and feet because of what her lawyers call a "medical mistake."

Now, Tabitha Mullings is suing.

The 32-year-old suffered an infection and ended up a quadriplegic with impaired vision.

"Because of this hospital, this emergency room, with back pain and side pain, and she leaves here on a stretcher with no hands and feet and legally blind," said Sanford Rubenstein, Mullings' attorney.

It was on Sept. 14 when Mullings came to the hospital suffering from abdominal pain, and had a kidney stone, and a condition with a known propensity for infection.

But Mullings' lawyers say there was no blood test. She was sent home, and when her fiancé brought her back the next day, an infection was raging. It choked off the blood flow to her extremities. After gangrene set in, her hands turned black, her feet turned black, all four limbs had to be amputated.

[FormerACLUmember]

Emergency Room care in the US has collapsed, especially in the medical disaster areas of urban hospitals like this one.

The staff is stressed to the max providing free care to the riff raff welfare parasites and illegal immigrants.

Another million or two to this unfortunate young woman and her shyster, and there will be that much less money to run the ERs.

[cva66snipe]

Blood test would have been a blood culture,,no resuts would have been back in 24 hrs whether they did it or not. She was septic the next day. The facts have to be known before malpractice is known.

Yea but some other signs should have began popping up too. Dysreflexia conditions for one. A UTI is another. An untreated UTI can lead to Pnuemonia and CHF real quick in a matter of hours. I've seen that one diagnosed in a matter of minutes by doctors adding two and two with the right questions. A UTI and a stone would usually go hand in hand. Some ER doctors are gold and some need to find employment away from patient contact and out of the medical profession completely.

[4rcane]

the article is horribly written. It doesn’t sound like malpractice or mistake. It sounds more like a delay in treatment and the situation worsen that ended in her losing her limbs

[cajungirl]

Blood test would have been a culture,,usually they do three in a row and you have to wait for the bacteria to grow. Usually gram negative if assoicated with urinary tract infection.

[TommyDale]

She is suing? I am SHOCKED!

[cajungirl]

She may or may not have had bad treatment. She may not have been in septic shock when they saw her but could have been 5 hours later.

I am always surprised that kidney stone patients get sent home and told to drink fluid and wait for the stone to pass. And if you go in an ER with a kidney infection, unless you have very high fever, are dehydrated and look septic, you won’t be admitted.

It is damned hard to get put in a hospital..a pity.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Depending where a ‘kidney’ stone is located, it can cause urinary obstruction, and as a consequence the patient can develop obstructive urosepsis. Most kidney stones don't do this, but when you put your life in the hands of a physician you aren't there for the ‘easy’ diagnosis. You put your trust in their ability to not miss the more difficult diagnosis that could have devastating consequences. To be a good doc one must maintain a high degree of clinical suspicion, and have broad knowledge of the spectrum of diagnoses that can cause similar symptoms. Urinary obstruction should have been considered. In my view, even if the emergency room doc thought that the patient had a simple uncomplicated kidney stone the patient should nonetheless have been instructed what to look for and to return immediately for evaluation and care if she developed progressive symptoms.

[ETL]

Before I had hand surgery, I wrote NO! in big red letters on my good hand.

Good idea! I would have wrote it on every body part, other than the one they were supposed to operate on! :)

[ican'tbelieveit]

That was not my experience working in a hospital. Kidney stones got the radiological exam and the patient stayed until the stone passed, whether on its own or surgically.

[upchuck]

That article is written awful. Hard to understand it.

Agreed. I don't know why but lots of news stories written by TV reporters really suck. Maybe the TV stations don't pay very much and they are left with the dregs of the journalism school graduates.

[Canedawg]

She is suing? I am SHOCKED!

---

Yeah, big shock, look at the timeline.

First went to hospital sept 14.
ending up spending two months in hospital, before being transferred to rehab.

That would bring it to mid-November.

Today is Nov 21 and her lawyer already is hired and giving MSM interviews.

I’m telling you, he must have gotten this case from a runner in the hospital who gave her his card while she was in there as a patient.

[Michael.SF.]

Good points, thanks.

Certainly there are many issues to be considered regarding this case and the article falls very short of covering more then the basic facts.

I suspect that this will be settled out of court for a low seven figure sum.

[School of Rational Thought]

Obama’s failed policies.

[Michael.SF.]

Before I had hand surgery, I wrote NO! in big red letters on my good hand

I should have thought of that before I had my vasectomy.

;)

[vetvetdoug]

Somewhere between alpha and omega is a whole lot of unknowns to the story. I suspect there is much more information to the case than she went in with a kidney stone and came out losing her arms and legs.

[therut]

Not enough info in the article. What kind of infection? I am a physician and have never heard of such a case. Oh yeah I love those who automatically blame the physicians. The only infection I know of from kidney stones is a UTI maybe pyelonephritis although I have never seen it. Usually you will wait 3 days to see if the stone will pass on it own. Like I said not enough info in the article.

[keats5]

Thank you for saying that. I read it three times to try to figure it out. I was feeling dumb.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Obamao and Michelle’s fault.

[generally]

DM?

[AnAmericanMother]

LOL! (did they have to go hunting for the other one?)