Delay In Treatment Leads to Heart Attack
A patient suffering from acute chest pain, diaphoresis (heavy sweating associated with physical distress), and pain radiating to the left arm with numbess. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he later suffered a myocardial infarction (heart attack). Despite the fact that catheterization was called for by the EMT the patient did not undergo the procedure until 13 hours after admittance to the hospital. In that time he suffered the heart attack.
The experts enlisted by the plaintiff’s attorney were prepared to testify that heart catheterization should have occurred within an hour and a half and that 13 hours between admittance to the procedure was well outside the standard of care. As a result of the heart attack the patient’s heart was permanently damaged and now will only pump blood at less-than-half the rate of a normal heart.
The case, brought by the plaintiff and his attorney, R. Lee Livingston of Charlottesville, recently settled for $690,000.
A close friend of mine died of a Heart Attack, his heart condition is caused by him being so obese.:*~
heart attack is the number 1 killer of middle-aged and old-aged people these days`’: