On March 28, 2024, after nine hours of jury deliberations, a Virginia medical malpractice jury returned its verdict in the amount of $1.5 million in favor of the family of a 41-year-old woman who died from a brain bleed due to a rare blood disorder, shortly after giving birth to her third child on August 16, 2019.
Because the woman lost a significant amount of blood during delivery, she required surgical repair of multiple vaginal lacerations, a uterine artery embolization, and she required multiple blood transfusions, after which she was transferred to the ICU. Within 36 hours after delivery, the woman required seven units of packed red blood cells and multiple units of other blood products. On the second day after delivery, her lab results showed massive hemolysis (red blood cell destruction), kidney injury, and low platelets. The defendant critical care doctor in the ICU consulted with a nephrologist (kidney doctor) but failed to consult with a hematologist (blood doctor).
The woman was transferred to another hospital two days later after a hematologist was finally consulted. A blood test determined that the woman was suffering from aHUS, a rare blood disorder with an annual incidence of 1-2 per million that can be fatal but is highly treatable with an FDA-dubbed “magic bullet” drug, eculizumab. Unfortuantely, before the woman was treated with the drug, she suffered a massive, fatal brain bleed.
The plaintiff’s critical care and hematology experts testified during trial that the woman’s condition required the urgent involvement of a hematologist to rule out a fatal blood disorder that may be successfully treated if timely diagnosed.
The plaintiff reportedly had to clear high hurdles with regard to the drug that the woman arguably shoud have been timely given: the plaintiff had to overcome the expense of the drug to treat aHUS, which is one of the most expensive drugs in the United States; the difficulty of obtaining the drug (a corporate designee for the hospital testified that there can be a long approval process before the drug can be ordered from the manufacturer, though this can be expedited in critical care situations); the actions of downstream providers (a critical care doctor who relieved the defendant critical care doctor waited another day to consult a hematologist, and the hematologist treating the patient after the critical test result came back failed to start the woman on the drug, although it would not have had an effect at that late hour); and the rarity of a brain bleed as a consequence of aHUS.
If you or a loved one suffered harm as a result of medical negligence in Virginia or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Virginia medical malpractice lawyer, or a medical malpractice lawyer in your state, who may investigate your medical malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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