There's a Hole in Your Eye! - How could that be? - ; ny medical malpractice attorney explains

What do you mean there’s a hole in my eye? How can I possibly have a hole in my eye? I went to the doctors just two days ago, to the emergency room, they told me my eye was fine. Those were the exact words that my client was told by an eye doctor. Would you like to learn what happened? Come join me; I’ll share this incredible story with you about a gentleman whose eye was destroyed because somebody in the emergency room failed to do what they were supposed to do. Hi. I’m Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney practicing law here in the state of New York. Let me share with you an incredible story about a gentleman who was going to fix up a house. He had gone to buy some supplies (some lumber supplies) and as he’s pulling off some lumber from a shelf, something hit him in the eye. He didn’t know what it was but he knew his eye was becoming very painful and it was starting to tear. The manager took him to the bathroom to wash his eye out and despite the washout there was still nothing in there but his eye was still painful and it was still tearing a lot. So an ambulance was called and he was taken to a local emergency room here in New York. In the emergency room he said “Listen, I need to see an eye doctor.” And her conclusion was that he had a scratched cornea and gave him some eye drops and said “Listen, here’s the phone number of an eye doctor you should follow up with. And if you have any problems, call us back.” So this is now two days later. He goes to the eye doctor and he had to wait for a little while because it was early in the morning. And while he was waiting, he had something to eat. The moment he sits down, the doctor starts examining him. He takes one look in the gentleman’s eye and he says, “You sir, have a hole in your eye.” And what does he say? He says, “What do you mean I have a hole in my eye? The doctor examined me in the emergency room and said I just had a scratched cornea. How can I have a hole in my eye?” He said “Listen. I don’t know what they told you in the emergency room but you have a hole in your eye and you need surgery immediately. Right now.” He said, “I can’t have surgery. I just ate breakfast while I was waiting for you to see me.” He said, “Listen. If you don’t have surgery now, there’s a good chance you can lose your eye. Not just your vision, but lose your entire eye. You need to get to the hospital immediately.” Because he’d eaten that morning, the doctors were unable to put him under general anesthesia because that’s a significant risk, risk of throwing up the food that you ate, inhaling it, and you can have massive problems. It could be life threatening. So they had to do this reparative surgery while he was under local anesthesia and awake. Now, imagine that. The gentleman has a hole in his eye. They have to numb up his eye, he can hear everything they’re saying, he can see what’s going on, he can feel the tugging and pulling as they stitch up his eye. Now, what ultimately happened here? What ultimately happened is that the doctor who saw him in the emergency room was in fact not a doctor. She was a physician’s assistant and in fact was not qualified to evaluate eye injuries like this and did not have a true understanding of the extent of this gentleman’s injuries. The patient’s own treating doctor and the expert that we had hired to come in and testify told me straight out, they said, “Gerry, listen. If this gentleman had come in and been diagnosed correctly on the day that this incident happened he could have had surgery the same day and it would have been no need to over sew his eye and the cornea would not be misshapen.” And what happened because it was misshapen and now they had to sew up everything really tightly to make it waterproof? Well that distorted his vision and it gave him no useable vision. So why do I explain this story to you? Because chances are you’ve had an eye injury, maybe you’ve had eye surgery that’s gone bad, and now you have questions whether or not you have basis for a case. Well, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. This is what I do every single day. I answer legal questions like yours, if your matter happened here in the state of New York. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com. I’m Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks for watching.