MOBILE, Ala., February 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — About February 22, 2022the personal injury law firm of Cunningham Bounds, LLC has obtained a $35 million Jury verdict for the family of a man who died more than seven years ago at Springhill Medical Center following successful thumb surgery.
At June 14, 2014while using a table saw in his woodworking shop, Jay West severely cut the fingertip of his left thumb. He went to Springhill Medical Center and was advised by an orthopedic surgeon that the surgical amputation of the fingertip was medically necessary. Following a successful surgery without any complications, the surgeon wrote a prescription authorizing up to four milligrams of IV Dilaudid (a strong opioid) every three hours for pain management. Mr West was moved to the orthopedic floor of the hospital for the night and was due to return home the following day. However, less than 10 hours after the operation, Mr West was found unconscious and not breathing in his hospital room and could not be revived.
Twenty-two months prior to his admission, the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) issued a Sentinel Event Alert regarding the safe use of opioids in hospitals. According to the recommendations set out in the Sentinel Event Alert, Mr. West should have been identified by hospital staff as being at high risk for opioid-induced respiratory depression, should have undergone serial respiratory monitoring and should have had continuous electronic monitoring of his oxygen saturation levels. Springhill Medical Center has not implemented any of these safety measures. The hospital also failed to educate its nursing staff on how to protect its patients from the known deadly dangers of postoperative intravenous opioids.
Before being found unconscious, Mr West had been given four milligrams of Dilaudid IV by his nurse. Less than two hours later, she administered an additional four milligrams of medication. After the second dose, Mr West was not watched by any nursing staff until he was found unconscious almost four hours later. Dilaudid carries an FDA-mandated “black box warning” due to its life-threatening side effect of causing respiratory depression and cardiorespiratory arrest.
“We appreciate the jury’s verdict for the West family. We hope it prompts the hospital to place a higher priority on training its staff quickly to ensure patient safety. When Mr. West joined Springhill Medical Center, healthcare facilities had known for years that some patients were at high risk for respiratory depression when receiving opioid medications.Springhill breached the standard of care by not having policies and procedures in place and by not training not its staff appropriately,” said Brian Duncan of Cunningham Bounds, who represented the family. Mr Duncan tried the case with his legal partners Robert Mitchell and David Wirts.
“My children and I are very grateful to the jury and their verdict against the hospital. We have waited seven years for this day and hope that no other family will have to lose a husband and father unnecessarily as we have. done because the hospital staff is not properly trained,” said Patricia West after the announcement of the verdict.
‘All it took was for the nursing staff to simply place an electronic pulse oximetry monitoring device on one of his fingers, and Mr West would still be alive today,’ Mr Duncan added.
The personal injury law firm of Cunningham Bounds, LLC, founded in 1958, is based in Mobile, Alabama and has been representing claimants for over 60 years. Today, the firm continues its tradition of representing victims in cases of catastrophic injuries caused by work accidents, defective products, truck and automobile accidents and medical malpractice. The firm also has expertise in commercial litigation, complex litigation, and national and state class actions involving defective products and consumer rights. For more information, please visit www.cunninghambounds.com.
For more information contact:
Joan Cumbie
251-471-6191
SOURCE Cunningham Bounds, LLC