The husband of a knee replacement patient was recently awarded $2.4 million in a hospital negligence wrongful death lawsuit filed against Holy Redeemer Hospital in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit was filed against the hospital on behalf of a patient who went in for a total knee arthroplasty and experienced fatal post-operative drug interactions.  The interaction involved anesthesia, morphine, and psychotropic medications.

The patient received anesthesia during the knee surgery, morphine to treat the pain afterwards, and Ativan, Anafranil, and Clozaril from a psychiatrist.  Less than a day after her procedure, the woman’s temperature and respiratory rate increased and her blood pressure dropped severely.

In the ICU, doctors diagnosed the patient with respiratory arrest and hypoxic encephalopathy.  19 days later, the woman died.

A federal judge in New Jersey recently ruled that the parents of a girl who died in Sea Isle City in February 2009 could pursue medical negligence and wrongful death claims against the emergency paramedics and police who pronounced their daughter dead.

The couple’s 35-year old daughter was found unresponsive, lying on the banks of the island at around 8 in the morning — more than 5 hours after leaving a nearby bar with her friends.  A fisherman called police who responded at the scene with emergency paramedics from AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center’s MICU.

According to the parents’ claims, the paramedics and police were negligent in immediately pronouncing their daughter dead without performing any resuscitation efforts.

In March 2010, 2-year old Almariah Izabel Duque was tragically killed after staff at the Nebraska Medical Center gave the toddler 10 the amount of heparin that she should have received.  Heparin is a medication that is often used during and after medical procedures to prevent a patient from developing blood clots.

Almariah was born with congenital defects and her parents brought her to the hospital for liver, pancreas, and small bowel transplants in December 2009.  Shortly after being discharged in February, Almariah developed an infection in her kidneys and returned to the hospital for kidney dialysis.

According to the lawsuit, a heparin pump was programmed on the wrong dose on March 29, 2010.  Staff at the hospital did not notice the error until 5 hours after it was made.  The mistake caused the toddler to begin bleeding in her brain and she passed away two days later.

Almariah’s parents are seeking damages for wrongful death, emotional distress, and physical suffering while their daughter was alive.