Confidential hospital fall case
Aug 27, 2013OUTCOME: $275,000 settlement
92 year old man was taken to the emergency room by his home care giver after he refused to wear his home oxygen supply and became short of breath. In the emergency room, he became agitated when he was ... told that he was being admitted to the hospital and was sedated with Ativan. He was brought to the telemetry unit at the change of shifts where his daughter told the nurse coming off duty that they needed to watch her father closely because he would get confused and would try to get out of bed. The nurse who assumed care for the client was not told that information and testified at her deposition that she would have used a bed alarm on him if she had known that. The client got out of bed and tried to go to the bathroom and fell, suffering a fractured hip. The surgery to repair the broken hip was uneventful, but he suffered a heart attack post-operatively and died 10 days later.
