Columbia Emergency Room Negligence Lawyers

Medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the United States, trailing only heart disease and cancer. Unfortunately, no small amount of those errors come in the emergency room, and sometimes those errors could have been avoided. When that happens, the victim–or their family, if the error resulted in a wrongful death–has the basis for a personal injury lawsuit. But winning cases like these is far from easy. An experienced Columbia emergency room negligence lawyer might end up being the difference between a fair settlement and none at all.

Mann Blake & Jackson has taken on powerful defendants and their insurance companies and won settlements to the tune of $50 million and higher. Call today at (803) 525-1645 or contact us online to set up a consultation.

Common Emergency Room Errors

An emergency room can be, almost by its very nature, a chaotic place. The ER can be treating everyone from the person who badly injured their foot at the company softball game to the person who had a heart attack. The broad difference in the types of patients and situations means that an emergency room really can’t function on a “first-come, first-serve” basis. Instead, they used an approach that’s called triage.

Triage essentially boils down to prioritizing patients by the seriousness of their condition. It’s perfectly logical, but what happens when mistakes get made in the triage process? What happens when a person suffers severe adverse consequences–perhaps even death–because they were left waiting on medical care?

What should happen is that a Columbia emergency room negligence attorney should be called on to investigate and find out if this was avoidable. Mistakes in triage are a big part of what differentiates emergency room negligence from other medical malpractice cases. It’s imperative that the lawyer called upon have the experience necessary to know what questions to ask of the hospital and what information to look for.

Other errors that can fall under the category of emergency room negligence include the following…

• Misdiagnosis: Were the right tests ordered? Were the tests that did get performed properly interpreted?
• Medication errors: Was someone treated with a medication they were allergic to? Was there an error in the prescription? Was a mistake made in administering anesthesia? Any errors involving medication are certainly subject to review.
• First responder errors: If an ambulance was involved, was there negligence in the speed of response or in how treatment was handled on the ride to the hospital?
• Surgical errors: Operations in a chaotic environment may be more susceptible to avoidable error than others. This can include everything from leaving an object inside a patient after the surgery, performing the wrong procedure and even operating on the wrong patient entirely.

Investigating the entire ER process must be methodically done, to identify the precise points at where matters went awry. Then, the issue becomes whether negligence was the reason behind ER failings.