Matthew Magargee died at age 28 when recieving chemotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Part of his treatment involves the injection of two different chemo drugs, one intravenously into his abdomen and another intrathecally into his head. On a normally scheduled treatment visit, Matthew’s oncologist and resident accidentally switched his two drugs, meaning that the one meant for his abdomen began to flow through his head, painfully destroying everything it came into contact with. Matthew suffered from severe, irreversible brain damage before falling into a coma. He died two weeks into his coma, during which his wife had given birth to his only child.
This is one of many heartwrenching examples of simple procedures gone wrong due to medical malpractice, ending in tragedy such as brain damage or death. According to the third annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, 250,246 Medicare patients were killed by potentially preventable medical errors over the past three years. The study was released April 3, 2006. This is a mere fraction of the approximate 575,000 deaths of the past three years due to medical malpractice, including patients on and off Medicare.
If you or someone you know is suffering or has suffered from medical malpractice, feel free to contact a personal injury lawyer such as Wooten, Honeywell, Kimbrough, Gibson, Doherty & Normand of Orlando, Florida to answer all your medical malpractice and negligence questions.
