King County Jury Awards $13.95 Million Over Delayed Stroke Care During Heart Catheterization
After trial: UW Medicine said in February 2019 that it was determining next steps after the verdict. We found no reported appeal or post-trial reduction, but could not confirm the docket, so finality is unconfirmed.
A King County jury in February 2019 found Children's University Medical Group negligent for failing to recognize and treat an embolic stroke that a young West Seattle woman suffered during an elective cardiac catheterization at Seattle Children's. The jury awarded $13,953,887, made up of $10.95 million for future economic loss and $3 million in general damages.
What happened
In January 2014, a West Seattle patient went to Seattle Children's Hospital for an elective cardiac catheterization to replace a fractured stent. She had received a heart transplant in 2007, when she was 12, and doctors had determined in 2013 that the stent needed to be replaced.
The procedure did not go as planned. The cardiology team found it did not have enough stents on hand and prolonged the catheterization while it sought stents from the University of Washington Medical Center. The cardiologists ultimately decided to proceed with a different stent, and the procedure ran about four hours, which left the patient at high risk of an embolic stroke.
The stroke came, and the delay is what the case turned on. Stroke treatment depends on speed: the sooner a blocked artery is identified, the more options a care team has to restore blood flow, and the less brain tissue is lost. After the procedure the patient showed obvious symptoms, but she was not tested for stroke for about four hours, too long for doctors to intervene and reverse the damage. She was left with permanent impairment of her cognitive function, speech, memory and mobility, and she will need full-time care for the rest of her life.
She sued Children's University Medical Group, the physician group that provided her care, in King County Superior Court. Darrell Cochran represented her at trial. The claim was that the doctors did not plan adequately before the procedure and then failed to recognize and treat the stroke in a timely way once it began. UW Medicine and Seattle Children's defended the care as appropriate.
The jury returned its verdict in February 2019, when the plaintiff was 22, five years after the procedure. It found Children's University Medical Group negligent for failing to recognize and treat the embolic stroke in time. The verdict totaled $13,953,887: $10.95 million for future economic loss and $3 million in general damages.
Cochran said afterward that the verdict provided justice and closure to a very deserving family. A UW Medicine spokeswoman said the care provided had been appropriate, and a Seattle Children's spokeswoman said the hospital remained committed to patient safety. UW Medicine said it was determining its next steps.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.KNKX Public Radio, 'King County jury awards West Seattle woman nearly $14 million, deems care negligent', Feb. 26, 2019·Archived copy
- 2.The Daily Herald, '$14M awarded in lawsuit against Seattle Children's Hospital', Feb. 22, 2019·Archived copy
- 3.FOX 13 Seattle, 'Jury awards $14 million in Seattle Children's Hospital malpractice suit', Feb. 22, 2019
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