President Molly H. Craig and Jennifer F. Nutter obtained a defense verdict before the Honorable J. C. Nicholson, Jr. following a one week medical malpractice trial in Charleston County, South Carolina.
The Plaintiff sued her husband’s general surgeon for negligently perforating the bowel during a routine abdominal procedure and failing to discover the perforation for four days resulting in septic shock and peritonitis. Following the second surgery to repair the perforated bowel, the Decedent went into heart failure and kidney shutdown, requiring dialysis. Once resuscitated, the Decedent was on a ventilator for approximately one month. The Plaintiff alleged ongoing medical problems for twenty months related to the sepsis requiring additional surgeries and hospitalizations.
The defense presented testimony from the Defendant, expert physicians, and two treating surgeons who testified a bowel perforation is a known complication of any abdominal procedure that can occur in absence of medical negligence. The Defendant also proved the injury was timely recognized and fixed. Additionally, the Defendant proved that all subsequent medical care for twenty months prior to the death were related to a condition unrelated to the bowel perforation.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of the Defendant physician.