Our 77-year-old client was injured when the car in which she was a passenger turned left in front of an oncoming SUV. The impact was on her side causing pain to her ankle, shoulder, back, and neck. She was taken by EMS to the hospital. There she complained that her ankle pain was the most severe. X-rays and CT Scans were performed. The medical records stated, “No acute findings or fracture noted in any of the diagnostic readings… sprain of left ankle.” However, someone at the hospital missed the broken ankle.
She Found Our Firm Because She Heard of Us Before
Our client followed up with her primary care physician the following day because her ankle was hurting so much and was extremely swollen. She was referred to an orthopedist for evaluation and 2 weeks after the wreck she was diagnosed with a displaced fracture in her ankle. A week later a CT Scan was performed to confirm the nature of the fracture for surgery. A successful surgery was performed.
Our client reached out to us after surgery was performed. We shared with her the importance of documentation. We advised her to well document the series of events from the wreck, to the hospital, to the re-evaluation by the orthopedist which eventually led to the diagnosis of a badly broken foot and then surgery. We encouraged our client along the way to make sure the medical records were accurate and well documented so that there would be no question that this wreck caused her injury.
Successful Surgery but Long-term Effects
Our client underwent surgery that required plates and screws to be placed into her ankle. After surgery, we encouraged our client to do everything that she could to completely recover from her injury. She did just that. She went to every PT session and worked hard at home to improve. She was immobilized for a fairly long time as she recovered.
After her treatment ended, she still noticed some of the discomfort from her injury. The doctor said she had reached maximum medical improvement, but she would feel some lasting effects and would somewhat adjust over time. Her doctor did recommend steroid injections and future surgery to reduce her pain and to improve her function.
Future Surgery and Injections
One of the things we had to account for was the cost of a future surgery and ongoing injections to reduce our client’s pain. We had medical experts to place values on surgery and ongoing injection treatment.
In addition, we had to take into consideration the pain our client would likely experience and trouble and disruption it would have on her life. We carefully placed a number on all of this to completely compensate her.
Our Demand and Settlement
Initially, the insurance company let us know that there was no finding at the hospital of any injury, much less a broken foot. Because of the well documented file we had created, we filed a lawsuit to get our client proper compensation.
We entered into the discovery phase of the lawsuit with the attorney on the other side. Discovery is where you find out the strengths and weaknesses of the other side’s case. You ask written questions, collect records and other documents, and take depositions of witnesses. Because we had well documented everything along the way, we were able to give the other attorney all he needed to reach a fair and equitable settlement. We settled for a substantial six-figure dollar amount.
