Matthew Dudley and Dan Smart successfully resolved a wrongful death nursing home case in Peoria County for $450,000. The decedent died while recovering from a hip fracture he sustained at his home. While at the nursing home, a blood test that showed a critically high white blood cell count was faxed to the nursing home, but the result was never passed on to the resident’s doctors. As a result, the resident became septic and died three days after the result without receiving any medical treatment for sepsis or being transferred to a hospital.
The nursing home was also cited by the Illinois Department of Public Health for neglect.
This is a corporation with skilled care facilities throughout the Midwest, which is highly profitable. Nonetheless, they have an inadequately trained staff and poor internal policies and procedures, which allowed this medical error to happen. If the lab result had been properly communicated, the infection would have been treated and the patient would be alive today. This was a needless and easily preventable death. The decedent was a US Army veteran and is survived by his two adult daughters.