Personal Injury

Operating Room Fall Causes Lawsuit in Massachusetts

A Massachusetts family has filed a lawsuit after a women falls off an operating table following hip surgery. According to an article in the Boston Globe, the woman "fell, buttocks first, through a gap in an orthopedic surgical table on Oct. 6 after a nurse removed a safety strap around her torso as medical staff prepared to transfer her to a hospital bed, according to an investigative report by the state Department of Public Health."

The paper said that the women who was "under anesthesia and had a breathing tube in her mouth, struck her head on the floor, fracturing her skull and causing internal bleeding.... She died Oct. 13 despite a second operation that removed part of her skull to relieve pressure from the bleeding."

According to the article, Boston plaintiff attorney Andrew Meyer, a medical malpractice lawyer for 30 years who has won some of Massachusetts's biggest judgments, said "he has never encountered a case of a patient dying as a result of a fall from an operating table."

See the full Globe article: Family sues in operating room fall.

From Medical Malpractice Law News posted 2008-01-31.