A Florida mother was awarded $10 million in a case where she alleged an ambulance service’s negligence lead to her son getting cerebral palsy. That’s because the ambulance took her to the wrong hospital when she was in labor. http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/cerebral-palsy-lawsuit-birth-in-ambulance-9606/
The medical malpractice lawsuit had been brought by Margarita Chess of Volusia County, naming as defendants EVAC Ambulance, Bert Fish Medical Center, Halifax Medical Center, Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando and two physicians.
All of the parties except the ambulance service had settled with Chase for $1.4 million before the case when to trial, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Chess’s son was premature, born when she was just six months into her pregnancy. As she went into labor in 2003, she was first at Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach. She was then supposed to be transferred and transported by EVAC to Halifax Medical Center. But somehow, the ambulance was instead sent to Arnold Palmer Hospital, more than 50 miles away.
Chess’s son, Addison Chase, was born on the way to Arnold Palmer.
The malpractice suit alleged that the infant had trouble breathing after he was born. The paramedics performed CPR, but Addison’s brain was deprived of oxygen. As a result he sustained brain damage, and now has the long-term disabilities of cerebral palsy.
