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Cleveland Attorneys for Victims of Brain Injuries Due to Medical Malpractice
As patients, we trust medical professionals to get it right the first time. Nobody thinks when they walk into the Emergency Room with a head injury after an auto accident that they’ll walk out with further brain damage. Sometimes, however, due to neglect and other mistakes, this is exactly what happens.
If you’ve suffered brain damage as a result of a doctor’s malpractice, give our personal injury lawyers at the Joseph Law Group a call at 216-522-1600. For years, our experienced attorneys have handled claims in a variety of practice areas for the people of Ohio–including everything from motor vehicle accidents to brain injury cases. If you want to know more about what a Cleveland brain injury lawyer from our law firm can do for you, fill out our online form for a free case evaluation today.
Medical Negligence Can Lead to Brain Damage
The consequences of a medical malpractice-related brain injury are often severe. When a medical professional commits malpractice, it is usually through one of the following:
Misdiagnosis
If a health care provider failed to diagnose you to the best of their ability, and to the same standard as a doctor of similar capability, and this delay resulted in a brain injury, this could be considered a misdiagnosis.
For instance, say you are having a heart attack, and your doctor blows you off and diagnoses it as simple heartburn. As a result, the blood flow to your brain is restricted, resulting in an acquired brain injury. That can be a relatively straightforward case of medical malpractice.
Delayed Diagnosis
A delayed diagnosis can also be a form of malpractice, as long as you can prove the doctor could and should have done more to come to the proper diagnosis. You also have to prove that you didn’t delay seeking medical attention for your head injury.
For instance, while a concussion is often considered a mild traumatic brain injury, repeated head injuries eventually amalgamate into a serious brain injury. For example, if a team doctor were to ignore player complaints of their symptoms, all while that player is continuing to play a sport where he or she may sustain more serious head injuries, that would indicate malpractice, which is why we have seen more stringent safeguards for players, such as concussion protocols, be put in place.
Surgical Errors
Surgical malpractice refers to negligent activity performed by a medical professional during surgery. Surgery is fraught with the possibility for mistakes, but some of the more common types of surgical errors include:
- Wrong-site errors
- Incorrect operation
- Leaving a foreign material inside a body
- Injury during surgery
All of these errors can be devastating to a patient, and they often mean the patient has to undergo a second surgery to correct the first, if that’s even possible.
Anesthesia Errors
Errors may occur when an anesthesiologist:
- Delivers the wrong dosage
- Delays delivery of anesthesia
- Fails to inform patient of proper instructions before or after delivery of anesthesia
- Has faulty equipment
- Dangerously prolongs sedation
Many of these errors could result in a brain injury, and in extreme cases could even be fatal. It’s the job of a brain injury lawyer to discover if the anesthesiologist delivered anesthesia and all of the careful steps of administering it to the best of their ability.
Medication Errors
Errors in medication can lead to delayed care, overdose, and many other medical complications. Errors can occur when doctors or pharmacists:
- Administer the wrong medication
- Administer the wrong dosage
- Administer harmful medication (including medication the patient is allergic to)
- Fail to warn a patient of a medication’s side effects
These errors can lead to strokes, heart attacks, and many other devastating outcomes that can leave patients with serious and catastrophic injuries and a mountain of medical bills. However, this type of malpractice can be difficult to prove and requires an experienced brain injury attorney to acquire extensive evidence such as expert testimony and medical records.
Brain Injuries Caused by Medical Malpractice
Brain injuries following malpractice often fall into two categories: a traumatic brain injury or a non-traumatic brain injury.
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Traumatic brain injuries (or TBIs) occur when something strikes the brain. Whenever you sustain a head injury, such as the ones common in motor vehicle accidents, a traumatic brain injury is always a frightening possibility. The severity of a TBI can range from mild to severe.
For instance, many sports injuries, like concussions, are considered “mild” TBIs. Mild TBIs can lead to things like:
- Blurred vision
- Fatigue
- Dizziness
- Headaches
- Temporary loss of consciousness
A severe TBI, however, can lead to serious brain damage. Damage to brain tissue, like a brain bleed, can produce the same symptoms as a mild TBI, as well as more dramatic symptoms: lifelong cognitive impairment, mood changes, or memory loss. Common causes of these more serious head injuries include car accidents, slip and falls, and physical assault.
Regardless of the severity of your symptoms, a competent Cleveland traumatic brain injury lawyer like those at Joseph Law Group can help you seek restitution.
Non-Traumatic Brain Injuries
A non-traumatic brain injury victim may experience a wide variety of symptoms, including permanent impairment. There are a couple of different kinds of non-traumatic brain injuries: hypoxic-anoxic brain injuries and ischemic or hypoxic-ischemic brain injuries.
Hypoxic-Anoxic Brain Injuries
Brain cells need oxygen to grow and thrive. When the brain suffers oxygen deprivation, these cells die, resulting in a hypoxic-anoxic brain injury, or HAI.
In a malpractice context, this kind of brain injury can happen at a child’s birth if the doctor delays performing a C-section or result from anesthesia errors.
Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injuries
An hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, or HII, occurs when there is not enough cerebral blood flow to the brain. The leading cause of this type of injury is malpractice during childbirth when blood flow to the placenta is cut off. However, these injuries can also occur in adults as the result of a misdiagnosed heart attack or stroke.
Those who have suffered a brain injury, no matter how or why, will often suffer the repercussions for the rest of their lives. These are the wrongs that brain injury lawyers strive to rectify, whether with an out-of-court settlement or through a brain injury lawsuit. If you’re the victim of a brain injury or any other serious head injury, call the Joseph Law Group for a free consultation as soon as possible.
Can I Sue for a Brain Injury Caused by Medical Negligence?
An injured victim can file a brain injury lawsuit any time they suffer a brain injury as a result of another person’s negligence. This includes medical mistakes committed by negligent healthcare workers. Though the road might be long and difficult, an experienced brain injury attorney can help you recover compensation for things like lost wages, medical bills, and pain and suffering following the incident.
The compensation you receive through a lawsuit of this kind will vary and will depend on the injury itself as well as the circumstances surrounding it. Below, our Cleveland medical malpractice attorneys discuss the damages you might be able to recover as a result of a malpractice lawsuit.
What Damages are Recoverable in a Med Mal Brain Injury Claim?
There are generally two types of damages you can recover in a negligence claim: economic and non-economic. Economic refers to damages with a monetary value, such as the cost of extensive occupational therapy following a head injury. Non-economic damages refer to less visible things, like your emotional pain. (Punitive damages, which are intended to punish the defendant for their wrongdoing, may also be available in some particularly egregious cases, but this is rare.)
With the help of an experienced Cleveland personal injury lawyer, you can recover damages to help not only yourself but also your family get back on their feet.
Economic Damages
When dealing with brain trauma, there’s always the possibility for long term cognitive impairment that will keep you from earning money at the same rate you did before the incident. Something like a severe traumatic brain injury could result in a long term disability that will affect you for the rest of your life. Fortunately, Ohio allows victims of malpractice to seek restitution for these losses. Here are some of the more common economic damages you can recover with the help of our Ohio brain injury attorneys:
- Medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Reduced ability to earn
Non-Economic Damages
Often, the non-economic damages behind a brain injury (especially those caused by medical errors) are more traumatic than the financial drain. Most often, non-economic damages boil down to your pain and suffering following the injury, as well as things like mental distress, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and more.
Proving Malpractice in a Brain Injury Case
You’ll often hear that a medical malpractice claim is impossible to win. While that’s certainly not true, it is very difficult for personal injury lawyers to prove malpractice. However, many of the same standards apply for proving malpractice as for proving negligence in other cases. For example, brain injury victims (and their personal injury lawyer) must prove:
- The doctor or other healthcare provider failed to provide appropriate medical care
- That the failure to provide appropriate medical attention caused the injury
- That the injury directly resulted in the damages incurred
Proving that first point often involves establishing a certain standard of care that is incredibly unique to every individual situation. This often involves expert medical testimony as well as several other legal resources. As such, it will take an experienced group of med mal brain injury attorneys to prove malpractice in court.
Call the Joseph Law Group for a free consultation if you’ve suffered a brain injury as a result of malpractice.
Why You Need a Medical Malpractice Attorney for Your Cleveland Brain Injury Claim
Injury lawyers can help you recover compensation after an incident of malpractice leaves you with a loss of income and extensive medical bills. Proving malpractice before a jury is exceedingly difficult and requires testimony from experts and hours of hard work performed by competent attorneys. Every case is different, every doctor’s ability is different, and every injury is different, which can make it a hard fight to prove that a doctor didn’t act to the best of their ability. For that reason, it’s always in your best interest to consult with experienced legal counsel before bringing a claim against a negligent medical provider.
If you suffered a brain injury as a result of malpractice, give the Joseph Law Group in Cleveland a call at 216-522-1600, or fill out our online intake form for a free case evaluation today.
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