Pennsylvania Man Suffers Catastrophic Injuries After Receiving The Wrong Drugs
The expectation is that you’ll walk out of a hospital in better shape than when you walked in. The expectation is that you’ll be treated by medical professionals who actually know what they’re doing – that you’ll be given drugs that actually work. The expectation is that you can trust hospitals to heal you. All too often, these expectations are shattered in Pennsylvania – and this is exactly what happened to one man who suffered catastrophic injuries at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital.
Patient Given Muscle Paralyzing Agent by Mistake
In 2021, a Pennsylvania man was receiving treatment for Covid-19 at the Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Philadelphia. He was receiving Remdesivir intravenously, and he was set to begin his fifth round of these treatments. Unfortunately, the fifth bag of Remdesivir had been mislabeled, and it was actually a muscle-paralyzing agent called cisatracurium. The nurse hooked up this bag as usual and left the patient.
When she returned, the patient was experiencing violent seizures. Next, his heart stopped beating – and he went into cardiac arrest. In total, he spent 11 minutes without a heartbeat before he was finally resuscitated. Later, he was moved to the ICU in serious condition. Due to the nature of the paralysis, the man could not call for help or even press the call button as his health rapidly deteriorated after receiving the muscle paralysis drug.
After this incident, it was determined that the man had suffered a range of injuries. These included anoxic brain injury, respiratory failure, hypoxia, and liver shock. Perhaps the most serious of these is anoxic brain injury, which occurs when the brain is starved of oxygen or blood flow. The fact that the victim was essentially dead for 11 minutes means that he almost certainly suffered serious brain damage. It is unlikely that he will ever be the same again.
Initially, it was not clear what had caused these injuries, and medical staff probably chalked it up to the strange, unpredictable effects of Covid-19. However, the contents of the IV bag were tested, and the nature of the mistake was discovered. Eventually, the hospital determined that the drug had been mislabeled by a pharmacy intern.
Unsurprisingly, the patient decided to sue. Not only is he suing the hospital itself, but also the pharmacy intern, the supervising pharmacist, and the pharmacy that was involved in the mislabeling of the drug. Numerous studies have concluded that almost 10,000 people die each year in the United States due to medication errors like this one.
Where Can I Find a Qualified, Experienced Personal Injury Attorney in Pennsylvania?
If you’ve been searching for a qualified, experienced Scranton personal injury attorney, look no further than the Needle Law Firm. With our help, you can hold hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers responsible for the damage that they have caused. Whether you were given the wrong medication, the wrong surgery, or the wrong diagnosis, you deserve justice. Book your consultation today to determine the most appropriate course of action.
Sources:
mdlinx.com/article/lawsuit-filed-against-philadelphia-hospital-after-muscle-paralyzing-agent-administered-by-mistake/1ium6Abdmiq3vvI3JQzDwq
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519065/
