Plaintiff was provided medical care by Defendant, a spinal surgeon, for back and neck pain, resulting from an injury sustained during a work accident. The plaintiff fell after having his right foot and ankle trapped under a cart. This led to problems with headache, neck pain, lower back pain, hip, knee, and shoulder pain. Treatment included pain management of chronic neck and shoulder pain; in addition, the plaintiff had undergone extensive physical therapy.
About three weeks prior to the incident on February 28, 2007, Plaintiff saw the defendant for a follow up visit, where the surgeon reviewed the results from the most recent MRI of the plaintiff. Defendant notes in the report that Plaintiff had status post anterior cervical fusion at C5-6, in addition to mild disc bulges at left C3-4, central C4-5 and C6-7. The Defendant recommended proceeding with a cervical epidural steroid injection left side at C3-4, which Defendant had hoped would solve Plaintiff’s neck pain and headaches. We note parenthetically,
that although a spinal surgeon is indeed qualified to perform epidural injections, most often, these procedures which carry great risk of not being done properly, are done by physiatrists.
Despite the fact that the patient was sedated, because the surgeon caused the tuoey spinal cord needle to piece the dura which covered the spinal cord and actually invade the spinal cord. The plaintiff jumped up from the surgical table in pain, and the surgeon immediately stopped the procedure. Immediately after the procedure, the Plaintiff complained of severe burning pain in his shoulder and numbness in his hands. He then lost full use of his leg, for about three years. During that time, he was confined to a wheelchair. Fortunately, his movement and use of his limbs fully returned.
The defendant was negligent during this operation in multiple ways that led to severe injuries to the Plaintiff. The first injury was a result of the needle piercing the parenchyma of the spinal cord. The second injury was from the 80 mg of DepoMedrol inadvertently entering his spinal cord during the attempted epidural steroid injection. DepoMedrol contains benzyl alcohol, which is toxic when administered locally to neural tissue. This matter was settled for $1,000,000.00.
