Anesthesia Injury
Studies estimate an anesthesia injury from a medication error or adverse drug event (ADE) occurs in about half of all surgeries. Though many of these errors and ADEs do not cause injury or death, those kinds of odds are nevertheless shocking.
Patients who suffer anesthesia injuries may face long-term disabilities like nerve damage and brain injuries. And a particularly egregious error can even lead to coma or death. In the event that you or a loved one suffers an anesthesia injury, a Denver anesthesia injury lawyer from Zaner Law Personal Injury Lawyers will stand up to insurers to fight for fair injury compensation.
How Our Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help You With Your Anesthesia Injury Case in Denver, CO
Zaner Law Personal Injury Lawyers has represented injured clients in Denver, Colorado, since its founding in 2012. Our team of medical malpractice attorneys has over 35 years of combined legal experience and has secured some of the largest settlements and verdicts in Colorado’s history.
When you suffer an injury due to a healthcare provider’s actions, our law firm will provide you with the following legal services:
- Listening to your story to learn about your goals and concerns
- Analyzing your situation and explaining your legal rights and options
- Investigating your case and gathering evidence, such as medical records
- Preparing and filing your insurance claim with the provider’s malpractice carrier
- Negotiating for a fair settlement with the insurer
- Taking your case to court if a fair settlement is not achievable
You may suffer significant economic and non-economic losses from an anesthesia injury, so do not hesitate to contact Zaner Law Personal Injury Lawyers for a free consultation with a Denver personal injury attorney. We will discuss how your injuries have affected you and determine the compensation you can pursue for those developments.
Why Do Patients File Anesthesia Injury Lawsuits?
Colorado law requires healthcare providers to meet the professional standard of care when treating patients. Doctors, nurses, dentists, and anesthesiologists must exercise the care and caution of a reasonably prudent medical professional in the same circumstances.
An anesthesiologist, or any other healthcare provider, for that matter, can injure a patient by doing any of the following:
- Calculating the wrong dose
- Ordering the incorrect concentration
- Failing to read a patient’s chart before ordering or administering anesthesia
- Neglecting to double-check the medication delivered to the provider
- Attempting to treat patients while intoxicated
- Administering anesthesia incorrectly or clumsily
The goal of the standard is to hold healthcare providers liable for unreasonable carelessness. However, not every mistake violates the standard. Specifically, a doctor who makes a reasonable error has not committed medical malpractice.
With that in mind, your medical malpractice attorney would have to show that the mistake was unreasonable. A common way of doing so involves explaining how the doctor who made the error knew (or should have known) to act differently.
Medical facilities may also bear liability for the actions of their staff members. For instance, suppose that a hospital’s non-medical staff mixes up patient files. An anesthesiologist relied on those files and incorrectly determined that their patient had no allergies. If the patient were to have an allergic reaction, the hospital may bear the liability for any losses.
What Is An Anesthesia Injury?
Anesthesia injuries happen when a healthcare provider incorrectly administers anesthetic medication. Of course, to fully understand anesthesia injuries, you must understand what anesthesia is and how it works.
Anesthesia is a technology that allows modern medicine to involve long, invasive, and otherwise procedures. Various medical professionals use these medications to produce the following effects, depending on the procedure:
- Relax muscles
- Paralyze nerves
- Block pain
- Sedate the patient
Nerves use two mechanisms to carry signals between the brain and body. And nerve cells use charged particles called ions to create electrical signals. They also trigger the release of chemicals called neurotransmitters to send chemical messages.
Anesthetics operate by blocking either the ion channels or the neurotransmitter receptors. For example, procaine, marketed as Novocaine, is a sodium-channel blocker that prevents nerves from releasing the ions that create an electrical signal.
Conversely, opioids block the pain receptors in the brain. Thus, the difference between these anesthetics is that procaine prevents the nerves from generating and sending signals, while opioids block the brain from receiving them.
Complications And Adverse Health Events Associated With Anesthesia Injuries
Since anesthesia directly affects the nervous system, errors involving it often affect the brain and nerves. Some of the most common anesthesia injuries are as follows:
Nerve Damage
Nerve damage can take place when doctors incorrectly administer an ion-channel blocker, often via an incorrect dose or concentration. Nerve damage can also happen when doctors administer an anesthetic for too long. The nerves are paralyzed for so long that they cannot recover after the procedure.
Patients may experience the following symptoms after suffering nerve damage:
- Numbness or tingling
- Paralysis
- Loss of sensitivity to texture or temperature
Ion-channel blockers are usually used as local anesthetics to numb small areas. A dentist, for example, uses procaine to numb your gum, tooth, and jaw before performing a dental procedure. If you suffer nerve damage due to an anesthesia error, you might never regain feeling in your cheek or tongue. Your face might even develop a disfiguring droop.
Anoxic Brain Injury
General anesthetics usually include a combination of a sedative and a paralytic. When a practitioner administers a general anesthetic, they must monitor the patient’s vital signs. If the sedated patient experiences distress, they’ll require assistance because they cannot help themselves.
For example, suppose the patient experiences a drop in blood pressure or falls into either cardiac or respiratory arrest. In that case, the anesthesiologist only has minutes to identify the problem and remedy it before the patient suffers a permanent injury.
Specifically, when the circulatory system stops delivering oxygenated blood to the brain, brain cells begin to die from a lack of oxygen. Such an injury, known as anoxic or hypoxic brain damage, can cause the following physical and cognitive difficulties:
- Amnesia
- Intellectual disabilities
- Paralysis
- Loss of vision or hearing
- Emotional outbursts
- Diminished motor control, balance, and coordination
- Numbness or tingling
Doctors cannot cure brain damage because brain cells do not regenerate. Instead, patients may require physical and mental therapy for the rest of their lives to try to retrain the brain to use its undamaged tissues.
Anesthetic Awareness
Anesthetic awareness happens when doctors administer an anesthetic dose that is too low. Instead of being rendered unconscious, the patient remains awake and aware of the sensations created by their procedure. In addition to the pain they experience, seeing a doctor perform an invasive procedure can cause deep psychological trauma.
Coma And Death
An overdose of anesthesia can paralyze the chest muscles and heart, depressing respiratory and circulatory function. If the doctor cannot reverse the effects and the patient goes without oxygen, they may slip into a coma and suffer brain death in as few as eight to ten minutes.
Anesthesia Injury Lawsuit Settlements
Most medical malpractice cases begin with a malpractice insurance claim. Insurers have a financial motivation to fight these claims, especially as a patient’s losses after an anesthesia injury may be significant. Doctors will also fight to protect their reputations, especially in wrongful death cases.
At the same time, neither doctors nor insurers want to pay lawyers to fight losing cases. Thus, many medical malpractice cases are settled before trial. To settle a case, your lawyer and the malpractice insurer must negotiate for a fair payment based on your losses.
Damages Available In Anesthesia Injury Cases
Victims of medical malpractice can pursue compensation for both economic and non-economic losses. Economic losses include financial costs, such as:
- Lost income for missed work
- Lost future income or a diminished earning capacity due to long-term injuries like nerve or brain damage
- Past medical bills for treatment to correct the doctor’s mistake
- Future therapy bills to treat any resulting disabilities
You can also seek compensation for non-economic losses. These represent the erosion in your quality of life due to your anesthesia injury, often taking the form of the following:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Disability
- Dismemberment or disfigurement
Colorado had originally capped non-economic compensation for medical malpractice cases at $300,000. However, its legislature recently passed a bill that will raise that cap, starting with cases filed after January 1, 2025.
Do I Have An Anesthesia Injury Case?
In a typical anesthesia injury case, your lawyer must prove that your doctor acted negligently, thus causing your anesthesia injury. Negligence requires proof of the following four elements:
- Duty of care
- Breach of duty
- Losses
- Causation
The two elements that doctors and their insurers will most often dispute are breach and causation. A breach happens when the doctor makes an unreasonable mistake. Causation means an injury was a natural and foreseeable result of the negligent act.
Ultimately, you do not need to assess whether you have an anesthesia injury case. Instead, you can simply schedule a free consultation with a medical malpractice lawyer. They will evaluate your case without charging you any legal fees.
Call Our Denver Anesthesia Injury Lawyers For A Free Consultation
Medical malpractice can cause significant physical disabilities and financial losses, especially when it leads to an anesthesia injury. Contact our law firm at Zaner Law Personal Injury Lawyers for a free consultation at (720) 613-9706 to discuss your damages and the compensation we can seek for them under Colorado law.
