So, I had a young woman who was 32 years old, college educated, and um she checks
into a hospital. She’s a known alcoholic, bad alcoholic, drinking half a half a bottle of vodka every day. And
she checks into the hospital. She’s very intoxicated when she checks into the hospital and says, “Listen, I’ve tried
everything. You need to save my life. I need to be here in a professional facility. I need to detox. I need your
help. Literally a cry for help. So, she checks into the emergency room and she’s in the emergency room for approximately
15 hours. And initially, she’s she’s intoxicated, but as the time passes, the
alcohol slowly dissipates from her system and she begins to show symptoms of withdrawal. She begins to have
tremors. she begins to have anxiety, things of that nature. There’s certain tests that are performed to show that she is beginning withdrawal. The
emergency room physician never personally evaluates her in the 15 hours that she’s in the hospital. Never lays his eyes on her. Never makes an
assessment of her condition to determine whether bzzoazipene is something that’s a drug that’s administered for withdrawal. Never administers any drug.
Her potassium levels are dangerously low. her magnesium levels are dangerously low. They never do anything to supplement those uh low potassium,
low magnesium. That could cause arrhythmias if your potassium and magnesium levels are low. They don’t do
anything and they discharge her without the emergency room physician ever making a personal assessment of her. And when
she’s picked up at the hospital, she’s literally shaking violently. Her family members testified that she was shaking
terribly and within 20 hours from her release from the hospital, she’s dead.
32year-old woman and a cause of death on the death certificate is ethanolism. So
she died literally from withdrawal which clearly could have been prevented had
the emergency room physician just followed the standard of care. you the standard of care is to always assess the
patient in the emergency room. And if you do that, if you assess them, you can make a decision as to whether they require some type of medication to ease withdrawal symptoms like benzoazipene.
You can make an assessment as to whether they’re levels are low and you can supplement them. But if you never make an assessment of the patient, that’s a
deviation in the standard of care. So that’s the most complicated of personal injury cases. It is a wrongful death
case and it’s medical malpractice. So that would be the most complicated. That’s like personal injury 2.0.