South Florida Personal Injury Blog

Broward injury lawyer Andrew Alitowski recently heard about an outrageous, devastating case of medical malpractice, among the worst he has ever seen, which affected a Davie resident. Lisa Strong, a mother of two, worked at a mall. She fell ill with shooting pain and a high fever. When the fever hit 106 degrees, she decided she had to go to the emergency room. There, she explained to the staff that she believed her illness was due to a kidney stone, as she had a history of such stones that had displayed similar symptoms.

The events that followed will shake any patient’s faith in emergency room services, says Fort Lauderdale accident attorney Alitowski. The nurse apparently notified the attending physician of Lisa’s rapidly deteriorating condition. Dr. Laurentina Kocik was on duty and she contacted Dr. Jason Strong (who is unrelated to Lisa), because Lisa’s insurance designated him as the contact physician in the event that her primary care doctor was unavailable. Dr. Kocik did not write on Lisa’s report that she had a suspected kidney stone, a move she says she regrets “a million times.” Still, Dr. Kocik insists she conveyed to Dr. Strong by telephone that Lisa likely had a serious kidney stone.

Dr. Strong agrees that the two spoke by telephone, but has no recollection of being advised that his patient had a kidney stone – or that her condition had deteriorated into septic shock. Lisa’s condition had grown dire, but he claims this information was not transmitted to him. Instead, he made a diagnosis of a gallbladder condition, which was incorrect. Dr. Strong handled the case by phone, without examining the patient, which is considered normal procedure.

The finger-pointing is common in any instance where there is likely more than one person at fault for the injuries of another. In this case, Dr. Kocik insists that she conveyed to Dr. Strong the seriousness of the patient’s illness and that she did not pass off Lisa to another on-site doctor because she “expected him to come in.” Dr. Strong says he had no reason to rush to the hospital because he was under the impression that Lisa was “reasonably stable.” Lisa waited for hours without treatment, until she had surgery which was wholly unnecessary. Doctors did not locate her kidney stone, which was causing the infection affecting her until body, until 16 hours after her arrival at the hospital.

The infection took over Lisa’s body as a result of the lost time. Eventually, her arms and legs were amputated due to the lack of care she received in the emergency room. She was in the hospital for months and racked up close to a million dollars in medical expenses. Now, she lives on disability payments, experiences chronic pain, and has difficulty with the most basic of day-to-day tasks.

When Lisa sued the doctors, the jury apparently had difficulty assigning the blame and decided that the doctors were not negligent. The judge hearing the case actually threw out the verdict, an extraordinary move, and Lisa will reappear in civil court next month.