Russ Berkowitz and Jennifer Amdur have filed a lawsuit in Hartford Superior Court against Hartford Hospital and their surgical team on behalf of the estate of our client who died six weeks following brain surgery as a result of the hospital’s operating team performing surgery on the wrong side of his head and brain, which caused him catastrophic irreversible injuries and ultimately lead to his death.
In September of 2017, our client developed signs and symptoms of a stroke, which lead him to be admitted to the defendant hospital. While there, he underwent a CT Scan that revealed swelling on the right side of his brain which would require a decompression surgical procedure to relieve the pressure from his brain swelling, which was affecting the left side of his body. Prior to his surgical procedure, our client was awake, talking, following commands, and had full function of the right side of his body. As is hospital protocol before any brain surgery, the hospital’s operative team marked the side of the head where our client’s surgery would take place. Unfortunately, the wrong side of our client’s head was marked and the brain surgery continued on the wrong side of our client’s head and brain.
Following our client’s surgery, it became obvious that the wrong side of his brain had been operated on: not only did he still have deficits on the side of his body that the surgery was intended to improve, but he now had significant neurological deficits on the unintended side of his body and brain, which ultimately caused a cascade of complications. Those complications lead to multiple surgeries, where part of our client’s brain was removed and left him in a vegetative state. His organs progressively failed, he sustained a cardiac arrest, and ultimately died. Our client is survived by his wife and three children.
Berkowitz Hanna
