Paralysis Due to Surgical Error

When we need surgery, we put ourselves completely in the hands of our surgeon and surgical team, knowing that we are completely incapacitated while under anesthesia. While most surgeries go as planned with either a favorable outcome or at least no additional harm, it only takes one careless error on the operating table to cause a life-altering disability, including paralysis. 

If you’ve experienced a surgical error that resulted in paralysis, you are facing lifelong consequences and an uncertain future. While no legal process can erase the injury, you have the right to pursue compensation with the help of an experienced Phoenix surgical error lawyer and seek justice through a medical malpractice claim.

What Causes Surgical Errors?

The most common types of surgical errors are wrong-site, wrong-patient, and wrong-side surgeries, but paralysis often stems from different causes. The most common cause of surgical errors that leave a patient paralyzed is surgical negligence, such as missteps, slips, and nicks from scalpels and other surgical instruments, oversights, or damage caused by negligent practices by the care team during patient prep or post-surgical monitoring.

What Types of Surgical Errors Cause Paralysis?

The body’s complex nervous system contains about 7 trillion nerve fibers and around 100 billion neurons, each with a dedicated purpose to send and receive crucial messages between the body and the brain. The nerve bundles in the spinal cord transmit messages from the brain to the billions of nerves responsible for motion in the upper and lower limbs and body. Unfortunately, sometimes a surgical mistake or misstep causes permanent injury, including paralysis below the point of the spinal cord damage. The most common surgical errors that cause paralysis include the following:

• Accidental severing of crucial nerve bundles or of the spinal cord itself
• Accidental stretching and damage to nerves from the misuse of surgical retractors
• Improper positioning during spinal surgery or other surgery, resulting in overextension or a lack of blood flow to vital nerves in the spinal cord
• Anesthesia errors, including those with general anesthesia and spinal anesthetics, such as epidurals
• Perfusion failure or inadequate oxygen delivery due to a prolonged drop in blood pressure, and the lack of proper monitoring to identify lowered blood pressure
• Medication mistakes that occur during the injection of medications into or near the spinal cord or other nerves
• Post-surgical infections

In addition to spinal cord damage from surgical errors resulting in paralysis of the lower body (paraplegia) or of the entire body from the neck down (tetraplegia or quadraplegia), improper positioning of a breathing tube during surgery can result in vocal cord paralysis. 

Surgical errors during facial, head, or neck surgery can damage facial nerves, causing facial paralysis, or facial nerve palsy, affecting speech and expression.

Proving Medical Malpractice For Paralysis Due to Surgical Error

Surgery is always a dangerous and invasive medical procedure, requiring highly skilled surgeons, anesthesiologists, and surgical teams working at their best and giving meticulous care throughout every step of the process. This is the medical community’s accepted standard of care. Proving medical malpractice requires compelling evidence demonstrating the following:

• That a doctor-patient relationship was in place at the time of the surgical error
• The physician owed a duty of care to treat their patient at the medical community’s accepted standards
• They breached their duty of care through negligence
• The breach of duty directly caused the injury
• The injury victim suffered damages from the injury

Common liable parties in surgical malpractice cases include the surgeon, a member of the surgical team, the anesthesiologist, the post-surgical care team, or the hospital or surgery center itself.

When a medical provider’s failure to uphold their legal duty of care causes an injury as serious as paralysis, the damages are extensive and lifelong. According to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, the lifetime cost of paralysis ranges from $2,310,104 for a 25-year-old with paraplegia to $4,724,181 for tetraplegia. These expenses are the economic damages in a medical malpractice claim for paralysis due to surgical error.

Additional Long-Term Consequences of Paralysis

Paralysis is a whole-body condition, even when the loss of movement and sensation affects only the lower portion of the body. Those with paralysis experience the following common complications throughout their lives:

• Brittle bones and frequent fractures
• Frequent urinary tract infections (UTIs)
• Frequent respiratory infections
• Pressure sores, infected pressure sores, and a heightened risk of sepsis
• Depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders
• Chronic pain in parts of the body that retain sensation
• Autonomic dysreflexia, or the sudden, severe, and potentially deadly rise in blood pressure as a result of the body’s alert system to indicate an injury or illness in the paralyzed portion of the body

Although many paralysis victims adapt to their condition and live full lives, the above secondary health complications have adverse impacts on the injury victim’s quality of life and may contribute to lower life expectancy.

Recoverable Damages In a Surgical Error Claim for Medical Malpractice

Despite ongoing research, at this time, there is no cure for paralysis. No amount of compensation can heal, repair, or correct paralysis caused by a surgical mistake; however, a successful claim recovers compensation for common damages such as the following:

• Total past and future medical expenses
• Expenses for physical therapy, adaptive equipment for the home and vehicle, mobility devices, and home assistance
• Lost earnings and reduced earning ability
• Compensation for pain and suffering
• Compensation for emotional trauma
• Catastrophic injury compensation for loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium (the full physical and emotional relationship with another), or diminished quality of life

An experienced Phoenix medical malpractice attorney carefully calculates the total past and future damages related to paralysis and makes a claim for the full compensation available through the at-fault medical provider’s medical malpractice insurance.

How Can a Medical Malpractice Attorney Help My Case?

It takes substantial evidence for a successful medical malpractice claim. An attorney from Knapp & Roberts consults with medical experts, occupational therapists, and other specialists to document evidence of the cause of the paralysis and the total economic, physical, and emotional damages you can expect from your injury. Then, they present the evidence to the appropriate insurance provider and make a compelling claim for compensation through a settlement or court award for your damages.

Call a medical malpractice lawyer from Knapp & Roberts to learn more about your rights during a free case consultation.