Medical malpractice cases always deal with serious, often lifechanging, issues. After all, medical malpractice cases occur because of botched medical procedures, which seldom have no ill effects. But, there are a few “unique” cases that drive the point home that these cases are not always straightforward.
Devil hand
In, perhaps, one of the oddest medical malpractice cases, is the case of the devil hand. In this $3 million lawsuit, a doctor was sued for following his patient’s wishes. Though, his patient was having a physiological break. Having stopped taking his psychiatric medications for over a year, the 33-year-old construction worker began seeing the number 666 on his right hand. This made him believe that he was evil, and that the only way to save himself was to remove his hand. So, he used a table saw on his worksite to cut off his own hand.
The hospital conundrum
Luckily, a co-worker had the wherewithal to know to put the hand in a cooler with ice to preserve the hand. They rushed the young construction work with his hand to the hospital, and the doctor initial convinced him to let him reconnect the hand. But, he changed his mind, and the worker told the doctor to not reconnect his hand, and he was unable to get him to agree to reconnecting the hand again. He then sought the advice of a judge, who said to follow whatever the patient wanted, and the doctor did not reattach the hand.
Leaving with no legs
In yet another horrifying $1.15 million case, a diabetic Florida man went into the hospital to have his right leg amputated because of complications with his diabetes-related circulatory disease. When he awoke though, his left was amputated, and he still needed his right leg amputated because of the disease. And, to make matters worse, the left leg was amputated, not because of the diabetes-related circulatory disease, but because of the surgeon’s error.
What we can learn
For Fort Lauderdale, Florida, residents, know that both medical malpractice happens, and it happens here. It happens every year, and it could happen to anyone who must go into the hospital. This is especially true now as many hospitals are filled past their normal levels and staff is overworked.