Practice Areas

Toledo Medical Malpractice Attorney

Birth Injuries · Cerebral Palsy · Brain Injuries

To explore the possibility that medical malpractice was the cause of your baby's birth injury, your loved one's spinal cord injury, a brain injury that occurred while you were in a hospital, or a grandparent's nursing home death, contact an experienced Ohio lawyer. At the Law Offices of Gary Osborne & Associates, we aggressively investigate medical malpractice and nursing home abuse cases and pursue the compensation our clients deserve. We hold the medical community accountable for doctor errors which result in serious injury or death.

Birth injuries: If your child suffered an injury in the delivery room, it is critical to evaluate whether preventable errors occurred in the management of the pregnancy or birth. It is always better to evaluate these cases as soon as possible. However, a child injured through medical malpractice may have until his or her 19th birthday to bring a lawsuit, so do not assume that you have waited too long.

• Cerebral palsy: The question that parents most often ask when a child is affected by cerebral palsy is "why?". A birth injury litigation attorney will conduct a thorough investigation into any demonstrable negligence on the part of healthcare providers, including obstetricians, maternity nurses and hospitals. Through close evaluation of the facts, the answer to "why?" often becomes crystal clear.
  
• Erb's palsy: When an infant suffers from Erb's palsy, his or her entire life may be affected. However, doctors are unlikely to inform you of potentially negligent actions during birth that caused your child to suffer the injury. A common cause of Erb's palsy is injury to the shoulder and nerve roots during a difficult birth. Our thorough investigations may expose the truth as to why your child's arm is paralyzed.

• Forceps or Vacuum Injury: While forceps and vacuum extractors can be valuable tools during a difficult delivery, they must be used with caution. The negligent use of forceps or vacuum extraction can result in birth injuries including brain damage, shoulder dystocia, spinal cord damage, Erb's palsy, cerebral palsy, and skull and head injuries.

Brain injuries: Brain injury may be caused by medical errors. Patients in hospitals suffer brain damage because of ischemia or hypoxic injury (lack of oxygen to the brain) resulting from anesthesia errors and other medical mistakes.

Wrongful death cases: The shock and sorrow of family members who have lost loved ones due to fatal surgical errors or misdiagnosis of cancer is made worse by accompanying financial losses.

Spinal cord injuries: Spinal injury victims are likely to suffer irreparable, serious disabilities including partial or total aralysis. Medical expenses as well as life-care costs for a paralyzed person are often astronomical and overwhelming. A newly-quadriplegic or paraplegic victim and his or her family are in dire need of just compensation when medical negligence was the cause of the spinal cord injury.

Emergency room errors: The accepted standard of care in emergency room medicine includes the responsibility that the facility has to identify life-threatening illnesses and injuries, and then to take appropriate action. When emergency room doctors and nurses fail to promptly and properly assess a patient, they may be liable for the consequences of their negligence. This often comes into play in cases of untreated heart attack or stroke symptoms.

Anesthesia malpractice: Anesthesia errors may include any of the following:

• Intubation errors before or during surgery or in the post-operative recovery room
• Administration of the wrong anesthesia drug for a particular patient
• Dosage errors in anesthesia
• Allowing a patient's blood pressure to go too high or too low while under anesthesia
• Failure to monitor vital signs such as the heart rate of a patient under anesthesia

Surgery malpractice: If you or a loved one has suffered injury or loss of life because of a surgical error, you may be eligible to seek compensation for past and future medical expenses, lost wages, disability, and pain and suffering.

Hospital negligence: Examples of hospital negligence include the following:

• Failure to monitor patients adequately (nurse malpractice)
• Failure of doctors and nursing staff to keep each other informed of vital information crucial to a patient's well-being
• Failure of personnel such as X-ray technicians and respiratory therapists to treat patients according to the accepted standard of care
• Medication errors
• Failure to respond to alarms that are intended to alert hospital personnel when a patient's vital signs are taking a turn for the worse
• Understaffing of nursing staff
• Hiring of unqualified or uncertified medical personnel
• Lack of infection control procedures

Misdiagnosis: The consequences of careless misdiagnosis of a serious illness can be devastating, since time is often of the essence when treating diseases. Breast cancer that is caught in its early stages can often be successfully treated through radiation, chemotherapy, and/or surgical removal of tumors. On the other hand, breast cancer that goes undetected may metastasize and become life-threatening.

Cancer: Did your doctor miss the opportunity to diagnose and treat your cancer in time to give you the best possible chance at a cancer-free future? Should he or she not be held accountable for the devastating results of that mistake?

Pulmonary embolism: Part of the preparation for surgery should be a careful evaluation of high-risk factors including a history of smoking or oral contraceptive use. Surgeons typically seek to determine before surgery whether patients are at a significant risk of pulmonary embolism or blood clots - and if so, to take appropriate preventive measures. After surgery, it may be advisable for high-risk patients to wear pressure stockings or inflatable decompression boots. Blood thinners may delay the coagulation process, thereby reducing the risk of blood clotting.

Heart attacks: Did a loved one suffer from an unexplained heart attack? Were symptoms of the heart attack ignored? Too many times, risk factors and symptoms of heart attacks are missed, resulting in a heart attack that potentially could have been prevented or damage to the heart muscle which could have been minimized by prompt treatment.

Stroke: A stroke can result in debilitating injuries or even death. When the symptoms leading to the stroke could have been treated, it is an unfortunate tragedy. Our thorough investigations can reveal mistakes made by treating physicians, emergency room staff, and other medical professionals.

Infections: When not properly treated, a simple infection can worsen and become life threatening. Nursing home residents suffer from bed sores; surgical patients receive inadequate follow up care; undiagnosed sinus problems can become so serious they cause brain damage. These types of negligence should be accounted for.

Medication errors/prescription errors: Medication errors can have devastating effects, including brain damage, nerve damage, kidney damage, or liver damage. If you believe that you or a family member was seriously injured, or if a loved one died, as a result of receiving the wrong prescription or an overdose in Ohio, we may be able to help.

Nursing home abuse: Injured nursing home residents or their family members often come to us to hold negligent facilities accountable and help ensure that future nursing home residents will not suffer a similar fate.

Nursing home deaths: People who enter nursing homes do so with the expectation that their health and well-being will be protected by their caregivers. Elderly or not, disabled or not, residents of a nursing home or an assisted living facility deserve the same kind of high-quality care that we all want for our own parents and grandparents.

Medical Malpractice Help in Ohio

Schedule a consultation at your convenience to discuss an injury or death that may have been a result of negligence or misconduct on the part of a doctor, nurse, therapist, hospital, or nursing home. Contact the Law Offices of Gary Osborne & Associates in Toledo, Ohio, by phone or e-mail.