Articles Posted in Brain Injury

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A Macon County jury entered one of the highest verdicts in its county’s history when it awarded $3.09 million to an Illinois worker who sustained a brain injury at work. The Illinois personal injury verdict was entered against Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas, Inc. for its failure to maintain a safe work environment in William C. Jones v. Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas, Inc., 07 L 152 (Macon County).

At the time of the workplace injury, William Jones was working as a contract employee for Tate & Lyle at its Decatur corn processing plant. Jones had been hired to perform general maintenance work and was performing his duties in the vicinity of an above ground storage tank when the tank unexpectedly broke apart. Its contents burst out towards Jones, knocking him down.

The storage tank contained 300,000 gallons of corn gluten that was heated to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, which caused burn injuries to parts of Jones’s body. In addition, the force of the fall resulted in a closed head injury, which was eventually diagnosed as a brain injury. The plaintiff contended that this brain injury caused Jones to suffer not only from short-term memory loss, but also from a perceivable personality change.

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As lawyers, we often hear accounts of clients who sustained fairly severe injuries after being involved in a car accident, yet did not have any medical complaints immediately following the crash. This is the case for a pedestrian who suffered a brain injury after being hit by a SUV. Despite her lack of symptoms at the accident scene, a Cook County jury awarded the plaintiff $713,602.

At the time of the Illinois pedestrian-car accident, the plaintiff was walking across a Northbrook intersection when she was struck by a Lexus SUV. There were opposing accounts of what happened. While the defendant driver stated that she was only traveling at one to two miles-per-hour at the time of impact, the plaintiff alleged that the impact was more severe. Also, while the defendant claimed that she merely bumped into the plaintiff, the plaintiff claimed that the impact was so severe that it caused her head to bounce of the defendant’s hood as she was thrown a few feet away.

However, both parties agree that the plaintiff refused medical treatment at the accident scene and did not immediately go to a hospital. Instead, the plaintiff continued on her way, even going out to dinner that night. In fact, it was at dinner that she began to experience some abnormal neurological symptoms.

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A Cook County trucking accident recently resulted in a $675,000 verdict for the plaintiff, who suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of the 2005 rear-end collision. The Illinois personal injury case was brought against both the defendant driver and his employer; Heather Davis v. Keith M. Longsine, Schneider National Carriers Inc., 07 L 3098.

The Illinois highway accident occurred in March 2005, during Illinois’s road construction season. The plaintiff, Heather Davis, had come to a complete stop due to the road construction on Illinois Interstate 94 near Thornton, Illinois. However, the truck driven by defendant, Keith Longsine, did not stop and ended up crashing into Davis’s vehicle. At the time of the accident, Longsine was driving a truck owned by his employer, Schneider National Carriers, Inc.

At the Illinois personal injury trial, the plaintiff hired a mechanical engineer to offer opinions as to how fast the defendant was driving at the time of the rear-end crash. The severity of the impact caused Davis’s car to be pushed five feet forward into the rear of a pickup truck stopped in front of her. In addition, Davis’s airbags deployed and her headrest broke off of her driver’s seat. The plaintiff’s engineering expert, Michael Rogers, used this information to opine that the defendant was driving in excess of 33 mph when the trucking accident occurred.

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A recent Chicago birth injury settlement provides an extreme example of Illinois surgical complications. The Cook County medical malpractice case was filed on behalf of a boy who was left with severe brain damage following his cardiac surgery at Loyola University Medical Center.

The minor plaintiff was eight months-old at the time the Chicago medical malpractice occurred. According to the details of the case, the little boy presented to Loyola University Medical Center for cardiac surgery. This surgery was necessary due to his congenital heart condition, but should not have resulted in severe brain damage.

However, both during and after the procedure there was a marked reduction in the oxygen flow to the plaintiff’s brain, which in turn led to the unexpected brain injury. The minor plaintiff’s brain injury was classified as a hypoxic brain injury versus an anoxic brain injury. The difference between the two types of brain injuries is that a hypoxic injury results when the brain does not receive enough oxygen to properly perform its functions, whereas an anoxic injury occurs when the brain does not receive any oxygen. However, both hypoxic and anoxic brain injuries can result in severe brain damage, which is exactly what occurred in this case.

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Bleeding seems like a simple enough problem to correct. We’ve all had a cut or scrape that has resulted in some sort of bleed and we all know the proper way to stop the bleeding: apply pressure and elevate the area. However, when bleeding is internal it is a completely different matter and can result in severe medical complications or death.

This concept is illustrated by a recent Illinois wrongful death settlement where a hospital’s failure to recognize a brain bleed in a timely manner resulted in this man’s death. The decedent had presented to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and was admitted to the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit for neurological observation after he sustained a brain injury as a result of hitting his head in a fall. Upon his admission a CT scan showed a small hemorrhage in his brain, which is basically another way of saying he there was a small bleed in his brain.

The plaintiff’s family alleged that the healthcare providers were medically negligent in their failure to recognize the importance of subsequent signs that indicated that this brain bleed had progressed. Further, they alleged that the doctors should have known and acted on those signs in time to prevent permanent damage and death by ordering an operation that would have relieved the increased pressure in the decedent’s brain.

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A Cook County birth injury lawsuit that alleged a baby boy had suffered severe brain damage during a delay in his birth was settled. The medical malpractice lawsuit was against Northwest Community Hospital, a nurse midwife, and the midwife’s employer. The case was settled and approved by a Cook County Circuit Court judge.

What was particularly interesting about the case was that the delivery was actually a waterbirth. A waterbirth is a birthing method wherein the mother is immersed in a small pool of warm water. Proponents of this method argue that it is safe and offers improved pain relief for the mother and less trauma for the baby.

In this particular Cook County birth injury case, the baby’s shoulder became trapped during the end of the delivery. The plaintiff alleged that the nurse midwife and assisting nurses did not drain the birth tub quickly enough to use the standard birthing maneuvers to free the baby’s shoulder, and that their actions delayed the baby’s delivery. Any delay in delivery can result in harm to the baby, and in this case the plaintiff alleged that the delay resulted in oxygen deprivation and brain damage in the form of cerebral palsy.

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A Cook County medical malpractice case was settled for $9.5 million after an injured child’s parents reached an agreement with his delivering obstetrician, Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, Elmhurst Clinic, LLC, and Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare. The Northern Trust Co. et al. v. Nirali Ghia, M.D., Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, et al., Case No. 04 L 7500, Circuit Court of Cook County.

In December, 2002, the now six year-old boy’s mother arrived at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital to induce labor. However, the labor did not run smoothly, and after over four hours had elapsed the medical providers opted to perform a cesarean section. When the baby boy was delivered it was found that he had cerebral palsy.

The parents’ Cook County birth injury complaint alleged that the obstetrician had failed to adequately assess and recognize that the fetus was not tolerating the stress of labor. During labor and delivery it is imperative that the nursing and medical staff not only monitor the baby and mother’s condition, but also properly interrupts the information available.

The plaintiffs further alleged that a four hour delay in performing the cesarean section led to the child’s permanent brain injury. The baby boy now suffers from cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects muscle coordination and body movement.

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For decades scientists have been interested in the migration patterns of salmon. Recently scientists have discovered that alterations in salmon swimming patterns from the re-direction of streams and rivers has led to an increase in bruising on the fish. In fact, these salmon are found to have signs of brain injury.

The symptoms of brain injury were discovered when scientists began monitoring the effects of dams along salmon runs to detect the amount of force it put on the migrating fish. Scientists used everything from dummy fish containing accelerometers to even embedding sensors in live fish. These methods allowed scientists to detect brain injury in salmon.

This is important for the medical community because it mirrors the way that traumatic brain injury is detected in humans. Several years ago a researcher at the University of Florida experimented with testing for evidence of the breakdown of proteins found in cell membranes in order to assess traumatic brain injury in soldiers. The theory behind this method is that cell damage releases enzymes that break this specific protein into small compounds.

So when testing for traumatic brain injury in salmon the researchers applied a similar nonlethal test to the one used in humans that would examine spinal fluid for evidence of the breakdown products. Although more challenging in fish, the results are positive in the medical detection of traumatic brain injuries in both humans and salmon.

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A Cook County jury verdict was entered in favor of the University of Chicago Hospitals in a 2005 trial and was upheld on appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court (Kashief Weathers et al. v. University of Chicago Hospitals, et al., No. 1-061726). In the case, several doctors were accused of causing brain damage to an infant born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. The plaintiff child now suffers from cerebral palsy and severe brain damage.

The baby’s mother brought an Illinois birth injury malpractice claim against University of Chicago Hospital alleging that defendant doctors failed to relieve the trauma caused by his umbilical cord during his birth in October 1988. There were also allegations that the doctors didn’t timely treat the baby’s seizures after his birth.

The plaintiffs’ obstetric expert testified that the defendant doctors deviated from the standard of care by not performing a cesarean section, which would have sped up the delivery. The expert felt that a quick delivery could have changed the child’s outcome because the brain damage likely occurred at some time during labor.

But the defense expert, a pediatric neurologist, disagreed. He felt that a cesarean section would not have made a difference because in his opinion the baby was injured at least one day prior to his birth. So by the time his mother was in labor there was nothing the doctors could have done to alter his outcome.

The trial jury sided with the defense and entered a verdict in favor of the University of Chicago Hospitals. The plaintiff brought the case for appeal on several counts.

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A $2.1 Million settlement was reached against the hospital and doctors in an Illinois medical negligence lawsuit involving the wrongful death of a woman from brain herniation after being discharged from a hospital. She was discharged with complaints of headaches despite a diagnosis of a brain tumor.

Mary, a 50 year-old female, was diagnosed at South Suburban Hospital with a right frontal lobe meningioma in early September, 2003, at which time she was discharged from the hospital with a referral to a University of Chicago neurosurgeon. However, before seeing the neurosurgeon she presented back to South Suburban Hospital two days later complaining of headaches and vomiting.

She is given some pain medication and sent home. Early the next morning she is found unresponsive by her husband. She was taken by ambulance back to South Suburban, but died later that day. An autopsy revealed that the cause of the Illinois woman’s wrongful death was excessive fluid building up around her tumor causing her brain to shift to the left and down through the brain stem, putting extreme pressure on her brain, resulting in brain herniation.

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