We represented the widow and two children of a truck driver with severe asthma who went to a hospital emergency room with a severe asthma attack. The emergency room nurses did not request a complete medical history, order necessary tests, or monitor his condition for deterioration. The physician failed to recognize the severity of the asthma attack — even though the patient had been treated in the emergency room and in intensive care 10 times in the previous year for similar extreme symptoms. The result was respiratory and cardiac arrest that led to brain damage and a coma that lasted until he died four years later. Our lawyers demonstrated to the jury that the asthmatic patient may well have lived if the hospital staff had checked his medical history and given his condition the close monitoring it needed. After little more than three hours of deliberation, the jury awarded the family more than $4 million for loss of family and household services, $1.5 million for lost wages, and $600,000 for medical bills (which we have addressed with a "petition for additur" to cover the $1.4 million in medical expenses the family actually incurred).
$8 Million
B. v. Holy Cross Hospital, et al.
