$5.25 Million for Missed Cerebral Aneurysm

$5.25 Million for Missed Cerebral Aneurysm

A 28-year-old mother of three settled her lawsuit against a Chicagoland medical practice, her primary care physician, and her chiropractic physician regarding medical negligence that resulted in a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. On June 09, 2017, the patient presented to her chiropractor for complaints of a worsening headache. The chiropractor referred the patient to her medical doctor and advised that if the MD did not order an MRI of the brain the chiropractor would. The patient was seen by her primary care physician later on June 09, 2017, and diagnosed with neck pain and given a Toradol injection and prescription narcotics. The patient called her primary care physician’s office on the morning of June 12, 2017, and reported that her headache was a 10/10 and she had vomited 6 times in the last 24 hours. Rather than being sent to an emergency room, the patient was scheduled to be seen by her primary care physician later on June 12, 2017. The primary care physician did order a CT scan of the head but did not order that it be completed on a stat basis. On June 14, 2017, the patient suffered an acute mental change with a severe headache while at work and was transported to the local emergency room where it was determined that she had a 7-9 mm cerebral aneurysm that ruptured resulting in a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. The patient required coiling to stop the bleeding, and craniotomy for evacuation of hematoma. The patient made a good recovery and was cleared from a neurosurgical standpoint to return to work by September 2017. $5,000,000.00 was paid by the self-insured medical practice and primary care physician. $250,000.00 was paid by the chiropractic physician. David J. Gallagher and Bradley Z. Schulman of Robert J. Napleton & Associates represented the patient.