$6.3 Million Verdict for Olympic Snowboard Coach Disabled by Undiagnosed Compartment Syndrome

In March 2013, Jody Blatchley was at Keystone Resort in Summit County coaching the New Zealand women's snowboard slopestyle team when he suffered fractures to his left tibia and right heel during a training demonstration. He was taken to St. Anthony Summit Medical Center, a Level III trauma center in Frisco, where surgeons repaired his broken tibia.

After surgery, Blatchley developed the classic signs of compartment syndrome: severe pain, swelling, numbness, and an inability to move his toes. His legal team would later show that an ultrasound performed during his hospital stay revealed 'increased pressure in the compartments of his lower left extremity.' Hospital nurses failed to escalate those findings to the treating surgeons. The condition went without a fasciotomy for roughly three days. When the pressure was finally relieved, the damage was done.

Blatchley left the hospital with left foot drop, curled toes, and complex regional pain syndrome. A competitive athlete and full-time coach in his early thirties, he is now confined to a wheelchair. He and his wife Delfina, who claimed loss of consortium, filed suit against the hospital and the orthopedic surgeons involved in his care. The physicians and their group settled separately before trial; only St. Anthony Summit went before the jury.

Jim Puga and Molly Greenblatt of Leventhal Puga tried the case in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado before Judge Wiley Daniel. The firm's theory focused on the nursing staff's failure to recognize compartment syndrome warnings and to communicate those warnings to the surgical team in time to intervene. The hospital maintained its staff had 'appropriately assessed' Blatchley and kept the surgeons informed, and it argued his original fractures would have caused permanent harm regardless.

On April 24, 2018, the jury returned a verdict of $6,300,000 against St. Anthony Summit Medical Center. The award appeared in Law Week Colorado's annual ranking of top Colorado verdicts for 2018.

St. Anthony appealed. In July 2020, the Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that the district court had erred by striking the hospital's nonparty designation of the settling physicians, which prevented the jury from allocating comparative fault among all responsible parties. The case was set for retrial but settled for an undisclosed amount less than a week before the new trial date.