Breach of Standard of Care Leads to Tragic Death of an 18 - Month - Old child - Oh lawyer stuart scott

I want to tell you the story of a recent case I handled that involved the breach of the standard care by a doctor and a hospital that led to the tragic death of an 18-month old child. We'll call her "Maggie." My name is Stuart Scott. I'm a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney with the Spangenberg law firm. Maggie was a perfectly healthy and happy 18-month old girl who happened to contract an upper respiratory infection. This was initially diagnosed as croup which is a relatively mild viral infection. Because she did not improve quickly, her mother took her to the local hospital where she was brought into the hospital and treated with standard treatments for croup. Unfortunately, Maggie did not get better. She continued to get worse over the course of the next twenty-four hours. And the doctors at that hospital felt she needed to be transferred to different hospital where they had a pediatric intensive care unit. Here's where the violation of the standard of care occurred. In any child who's having respiratory distress, the number one rule is protect the airway. And the way that you protect the airway is to intubate the child by passing a tube down the airway so that they can exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. That did not happen in this case. The child was transported by an emergency squad without being intubated. And what happened was that the child experienced a sudden respiratory arrest -- that is she stopped breathing -- while she was being transported from the first hospital to the second hospital. When she arrived at the second hospital, there was another breach of the standard of care. When they attempted to pass the tube down her airway, they failed to check that it was clear after it had been inserted. What happened was that the end of the tube got plugged up with mucus from the infection and it would no longer allow air to pass up and down the tube. This was what resulted in the anoxic brain injury or brain injury caused due to a lack of oxygen. And unfortunately, Maggie passed away several weeks later. You may have questions about your own medical malpractice case. I'm happy to take your call and answer your questions.