$6.5 million settlement reached in birth injury case

Most women have no concerns about going to the hospital to give birth to their child. That’s because they know that the hospital and its staff are well trained and know what they’re doing. We often trust this so much that we can feel incredibly betrayed when this ends up not being the fact. This can often leave us with a lasting anger and wondering if justice will be served.

Our readers here in South Carolina can see this exemplified in a recent case out of Texas where a first-time mother learned that the brain damage suffered by her newborn had not been hereditary but rather a result of negligence on behalf of hospital staff. In the end, a serious mistake on the part of the attending hospital staff resulted in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy that has left the now 5-year-old boy unable to care for himself and has left his mother feeling a bit of anger towards the institution that changed her family’s life forever.

According to court documents in the family’s medical malpractice lawsuit, the birth injury happened because of excessive use of a labor-inducing drug that caused the baby to go into distress. In order to get a sense of justice, the family sued for the 2008 accident and was recently awarded a $6.5 million settlement that is awaiting final signatures from the Justice Department.

Although the settlement money will never be able to correct the mistake made by the hospital staff, the mother of the now 5-year-old boy says that the settlement money will provide her son with financial stability and is comforted by the fact that her son will be taken care of for the rest of his life, even if she is unable to be there for him in the distant future.

Source: Killeen Daily Herald, “Judge: Darnall negligent during birth,” Rose L. Thayer, Dec. 5, 2013