On September 21, 2005, five-year-old Christian Stratton died 20 minutes after being taken off of life support, brain-dead from injuries to the spinal cord. Only two days before, Christian’s father had rushed the child to the emergency room after a bad fall where the head hit the side of a car door, and then the pavement. The child seemed normal, although in pain, with only a slightly swollen bruise on the side of his head. The child went through extensive procedures to ensure there was no traumatic injury regardless, as a part of a standard procedure, but the doctor neglected to do two things that could have saved young Christian’s life.
The doctor should have secured the neck with a collar and checked the cervical spine for any injury. Later that same day, Christian’s father found him limp, cold, blue, and unbreathing in his crib. After extensive CPR, a frightening rush to the hospital, and a helicopter ride to a more advanced medical center, x-rays proved that Christian had a large traumatic separation between the second and third vertabrae of his cervical spinal column. The bruising in this area induced a large swelling in the spinal cord, blocking blood from reaching the brain and causing irreperable damage to the brain. If the doctor had cleared the cervical spine as he should have, Christian’s complications would have been properly treated, and he would not have died.
Not only did the medical malpractice incident leave a child dead and a family mourning, but it left costs behind which should be compensated for. In Christian’s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia there is a looming “tort reform” bill which protects negligent doctors and hospitals from having to pay out to injured families. This is often done by designating a cache of money for malpractice victims in a medical malpractice cap, which is nearly always far from fair compensation.
If you or someone you know has been injured due to a medical malpractice incident or if you would simply like to find out more about tort reform, feel free to contact a personal injury lawyer such as Robbins and Associates in Atlanta, Georgia.
