THE INJURY LAWYER DIRECTORY BLOG

Getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening or terminal disease is probably one of the most devastating and frightening experiences anyone can have. But when you get the diagnosis and later find out it was incorrect, you will, most likely, immediately be relieved, but then anger will set in. Just think how traumatic it would be to be told by a medical professional that you had a disease as serious as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)and then later find out it was all a mistake. ALS is more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

That is exactly what happened to at least 1,200 Gulf War vets from across the country when they were erroneously notified by the Veterans Administration that they suffer from the fatal disease. The letters, dated August 12, 2009, also informed the vets of the disability compensation benefits to which they would be entitled.

According to National Gulf War Resources Center Vice President, Denise Nichols, the VA is blaming a computer coding error for this horrific mistake.

Needless to say, many vets already suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) due to the horrifying sites and experiences they encountered in battle. Being given a death sentence that proves to be a mistake just may be even more damaging mental torture. Medical misdiagnosis is actually a very common form of medical malpractice.

If you or your loved one is a veteran of the armed services and has been hurt by medical malpractice, please contact a military medical practice attorney today to schedule a confidential, no-cost consultation.

Two very popular weight-loss drugs may be associated with liver damage according to a recent report by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The active ingredient in these two drugs, orlistat, may cause hepatoxicity, which is chemical damage to the liver. Xenical, which is available by prescription only and Alli, which can be purchased over-the-counter have been taken by millions of people all over the world since they became available to consumers.

Xenical, made by Roche, has generated more than $30 million in sales since it was approved for use in 1999, and Alli, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, generated a staggering $131 million in sales during its first year on the market.

Both of these drugs work by preventing the absorption of fats; this, in turn, reduces caloric intake, but these drugs do have some unpleasant side effects including:

Fecal incontinence
Oily stools
Loose stools
Frequent bowel movements
Bowel urgency
Flatulence

But the life-threatening side effects of orlistat are:

Liver failure
Liver inflammation
Lesions on the liver
Necrosis of the liver

These drugs may also increase your chances of breast cancer and colon cancer.

If you or a loved one has taken a drug that was later discovered to be dangerous, you may have a valid pharmaceutical liability claim. An experienced defective drug lawyer can help; please contact one in your area today to schedule a confidential, no-cost consultation.

Even though LASIK surgery is considered one of the safest procedures available, it is still accompanied by the risk of complications. If your eye surgeon makes a surgical error during your LASIK procedure, the consequences can be disastrous, potentially leading to permanent vision problems or even blindness.

Recently, a New Jersey ophthalmologist agreed to pay $2.1 million in a medical malpractice settlement after he performed LASIK on a patient who was not a good candidate for the surgery. The patient had steep corneas, which severely increased his risk of complications. The procedure left him with a bulging cornea, resulting in long term vision complications. The doctor who performed this surgery has been sued for LASIK malpractice 16 times in his career.

A Chicago eye surgeon has faced more than 50 medical malpractice lawsuits since 2001. One of these patients required corneal transplant surgery as a result of his botched LASIK procedure. The Chicago ophthalmologist failed to diagnose a prior eye condition which made the patient an unsuitable candidate for LASIK.

It is surprising that these ophthalmologists are still licensed to practice. It seems that the medical community needs to more strictly monitor doctors who have faced such a large number of malpractice complaints.

It is crucial to evaluate the credentials of any doctor before you have him perform major surgery. The consequences for choosing the wrong doctor can be life altering.

If you have a medical malpractice claim in the New York City area, please contact the New York medical malpractice lawyers at Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, P.C. today to schedule your initial consultation.

When a woman in Denver, Colorado recently went out with friends, she did the responsible thing and called a cab to take her home after she had a few alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately, on her way home, a drunk driver struck the cab she was riding in, breaking both her legs.

This painful accident has since prevented the young woman from moving to another state to pursue a new career. She must undergo surgery to fix her legs, placing an incredible amount of hardship on her and her family.

Drunk driving accidents are terrible, and the driver that caused the injuries should be held responsible. In addition to the criminal charges the drunk driver will most likely face, another way that drunk drivers can be held responsible is through a personal injury lawsuit.

By contacting an experienced auto accident attorney, you can receive professional assistance and guidance with your personal injury lawsuit. Your auto accident attorney will help determine who was responsible for the accident, and whether it was caused by the drunk driver or the cab company, you could recover compensation for your injuries.

If you have been injured in an auto accident in the Denver, Colorado area, please contact the Denver personal injury lawyers at Burg, Simpson, Eldredge, Hersh & Jardine, P.C. today to schedule your initial consulation.

Witnesses say that just before an SUV left the road and rolled over several times, one of their tires blew out. After the driver lost control, the vehicle careened off the side of the road and over an embankment before rolling over several times and landing on its roof.

The victims inside the SUV were burned so badly that three of them couldn’t be identified. SUV rollover accidents claim thousands of lives every year. Many of these auto accidents are caused because SUVs are top-heavy vehicles that can flip more easily than regular passenger cars.

One of the more interesting aspects of this SUV rollover accident is that it seems to have been caused by a tire blowout. Tire blowouts can occur for a variety of reasons, such as defective tires, tread separation, or lack of air pressure. Once an investigation into this car accident is complete, police may determine that a defective tire caused the wrongful deaths of the five auto accident victims.

If you are driving a vehicle when a tire blowout occurs, the best thing you can do is try to stay calm and quickly guide the car to the side of the road. Making sudden, jerky movements after a tire has blown out can lead to a rollover accident like this one.

If you have a car accident claim in the Houston, Texas area, contact Houston car accident lawyers Kennedy Hodges, LLP.

If you have an auto accident claim in the Houston, Texas area, contact Houston auto accident attorneys Kennedy Hodges, LLP, today to schedule a consultation.

With so many advances in technology and with more and more work being done through emails, blackberries, and cell phones, questions are being raised about employees being paid for work done on their cell phones and via email after they are “off the clock.” Two lawsuits recently pose this question regarding hourly employees. As work and “free” time are merging together in many positions, employees are asking to be paid for work they do after they leave the workplace or after they are officially off the clock.

Recent After Hours Work Lawsuits

In July 2009, six employees of T-Mobile USA, Inc. alleged that they were required to use their company-issued cell phones to respond to work-related messages. None of the employees was paid for his time. The complaint against T-Mobile alleges that employees were issued T-Mobile smart devices and were required to respond to several work-related emails and text messages at all hours of the day and night without pay. Spokespeople for T-Mobile have not commented.

In a similar suit filed in March 2009, a maintenance worker for the company formerly known as CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. claims he is owed wages for time spent after hours responding to work messages on the cell phone the company issued him.

With the recession in full swing, are employers cutting corners by having the same amount of work done in the same time but by fewer people? Are employees nit-picking over minutes of work, maybe seconds, because they are struggling to pay bills? Some employees have even asked to be paid for the time spent taking off a uniform after a shift or for the time spent booting up a computer.

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), hourly employees must be paid for work that is performed off the clock, even if the work was done voluntarily. The FLSA was created in 1938, long before the age of computers, cell phones, blackberries, and texting. With the onslaught of these quick easy modes of communication, more and more employees are performing work-related tasks from their homes, cars, and even while on vacation. Many feel that just as the “workplace” has changed, so should the laws of paying for said work.

If you feel you deserve to be paid for work performed after hours, please contact an experienced wage and hour attorney in your area today.

A World War II veteran was seriously injured during what was supposed to be a routine eye surgery at a Mississippi Veteran’s Administration medical facility. The veteran was attempting to correct some of the sagging skin around his eyes with a blepharoplasty procedure, but instead received serious chemical burns to his corneas.

The veteran simply wanted to increase his peripheral vision and improve his quality of life. During the procedure, a nurse used an undiluted Betadine solution, which burned the man’s eyes and took most of his vision.

Instead of admitting their wrongdoing and correcting the problem, the medical facility lied to the man and told him the burns were simply an allergic reaction. After this lie, the man and his family contacted a medical malpractice attorney to help them with their personal injury lawsuit.

After losing his vision from the medical malpractice, the man became dependant on others for his care and later died during the lawsuit process. The judge who heard the personal injury case awarded the man’s estate $249,000 in actual damages and the maximum allowable award in Mississippi for non-economic damages, $500,000. The judge later commented that if there wasn’t a cap on pain and suffering damages, he would have awarded the family even more.

If you have a medical malpractice claim in the Jackson, Mississippi area, please contact the Mississippi medical malpractice lawyers at Coxwell & Associates, P.L.L.C. today to schedule your initial consultation.

Jordan Myhre, a 19-year-old boy, recently suffered a massive heart attack while training for a triathlon at his local pool. While this incident could have led to Myhre’s tragic untimely death, new medical technology on-hand at the pool enabled those around him to save his life.

The pool had an AED (automated defibrillator) on premises. This machine is used to detect the rhythm of a patient’s heart during cardiac arrest and administer the appropriate shock to resume proper functioning. Myhre received CPR and two shocks from the AED before paramedics arrived.

On the way to the hospital, paramedics employed new medical technology called AutoPulse, which automatically performs CPR on a patient using a band that gets strapped across the chest. This device helped keep Myhre alive until he reached the hospital.

Once at the hospital, Myhre received Arctic Sun treatment, a new body cooling technology which lowered his body temperature to 91 degrees in order to reduce secondary damage caused by the heart attack. Myhre’s body remained at this lowered temperature for approximately 24 hours so that his metabolism could slow to a level that protected brain functioning while allowing the heart time to recover. Hospital staff had just been trained to use this technology very recently; they used it for the first time ever on a patient just two days earlier.

The emergency room doctor who treated Myhre told reporters, “In my 13 years of doing this, I’ve never seen someone this sick walk out of the hospital.” Myhre is currently resting at home, and he is expected to make a full recovery.

If it weren’t for the AED on premises at the pool, it is likely that Myhre may have died before the paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital. These devices are currently being used across the country in places where individuals are more likely to suffer a heart attack in a public place, such as:

• Golf courses
• Airplanes
• Sports stadiums
• Gyms
• Theme parks
• Medical offices

AED treatment can be administered by a trained, non-medical professional, enabling heart attack victims to receive necessary treatment even if there is no medical professional nearby to assist. It is estimated that AEDs currently prevent approximately 50,000 heart attack deaths each year across the United States.

If you or a loved one has suffered a heart attack in a public place that did not have an AED on hand to help prevent additional injury or death, you may be entitled to receive compensation for your damages. It is important to consult an experienced heart attack injury lawyer to find out if you have a valid claim.

If you have a heart attack injury claim in the West Palm Beach, Florida area, please contact the Florida personal injury law office of Craig Goldenfarb, P.A. today to schedule your free initial consultation.