St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

The vast majority of hospitals and surgical centers in St. Louis, as well as in other cities throughout the U.S., have detailed safety protocols and procedures in place to prevent avoidable surgical errors. With proper attention and care, it is widely held that mistakes such as wrong-site surgery or wrong person surgery, known as “never events”, should not ever happen. Unfortunately, wrong-side craniotomies are not altogether uncommon. Between 1966 and 2009, there were reportedly 35 documented cases of these drastic mistakes. These drastic instances of medical malpractice can result in worsened medical condition and even death.

A woman in St. Louis was apparently the most recent victim of a wrong-site surgery error. She went in for a craniotomy bypass on her left side to prevent additional mini strokes, from which she had been suffering for about five years. The doctor and surgical staff, however, are reported to have mistakenly performed the surgery on the right side of her brain, subjecting the woman to a second surgery a week later to perform the correct procedure. 

Regulations and requirements for product safety are developed and enacted to prevent products that are poorly made or dangerous from being put on the market. In addition to meeting safety standards, many products are equipped with instructions and warning labels to ensure they are properly used to avoid consumer injury. In some instances, all of the precautions still may not catch a possible dangerous product. Whether it is due to a negligent manufacturer or a defective product, when a product is found to be unsafe, there is often a recall to ensure no further injuries or deaths are caused.

In St. Louis and other cities throughout the U.S., Walmart and Toys R Us stores have issued a product recall for an inflatable pool slide following at least two reported serious injuries sustained by consumers and one consumer death. One woman suffered a neck fracture while using the slide and a young man was left paralyzed as the result of an accident with the slide. A second woman died due to a head injury she got when the slide partly collapsed as she was sliding down it. She reportedly received medical treatment, but died the following day.

In St. Louis and other cities across the U.S., accidents, murders and other incidents occur every day, abruptly ending lives. Whether as the result of a fatal car accident or some other type of wrongful death, coping after the loss of a loved one is never easy. It can be even harder when the family believes that the death could have been prevented. 

One family not only has to deal with the loss of a woman and her two sons, they must also make peace with the fact that the man convicted of murdering them was the woman’s husband, and the boys’ father. In the wake of the murders and conviction, the woman’s mother and brother have filed a lawsuit for wrongful death, not against the man who reportedly strangled his wife and sons, but against the ministry where the man had been employed at the time of the murders.

When doctors treat patients in St. Louis and other U.S. cities, the patients trust that their physician is not going to cause them worsened or additional problems. In the event a doctor does make a mistake, it is widely assumed they will learn from that mistake and certainly will not make it again. Not all doctors operate with the care and attention that we would like to believe they do, however. In some cases, physicians repeatedly make grievous errors that can harm or even kill their patients.

In one state, a 22-year-old woman recently filed a civil medical malpractice lawsuit against a surgeon who is also facing medical professional negligence charges from the state's medical board. The medical board's charges stem from the woman's and multiple other cases of alleged medical errors on the part of the surgeon.