In one of the largest wrongful death settlements in state history, the family of a Jersey City psychiatrist has settled
their lawsuit for Four Million Six Hundred Twenty-five Thousand
Dollars ($4,625,000) against Meadowlands Hospital and a
number of physicians. The client was a 39 year old psychiatrist
with a wife and two daughters aged 11 and 13 when he entered
Meadowlands Hospital for laparoscopic gallbladder surgery
on July 31, 1998. The surgery, known as a laparoscopic cholecystectomy
is a procedure in which a small opening is made near the
belly button and the gallbladder is removed with tools and
a camera inserted into the small opening. It is much less
invasive than an open gallbladder removal and usually allows
patients to return home and to work within a day or two.
During the surgery, the defendant's small bowel was perforated
by either an instrument or the electrocautery device. As
a result of this perforation, the food being fed to leaked
out into his abdomen causing severe infection and sepsis.
A number of physicians and specialists treated the client
over the nine days he was at Meadowlands Hospital without
accurately diagnosing his problem or doing exploratory surgery
to find the perforation. This occurred despite a progressively
worsening condition which included severe abdominal pain,
nausea, fever, a distended abdomen, vomiting and ultimately
hallucinations. The decedent's test results including white
blood counts, x-rays, and CT Scans also were consistent
with the abscess caused by the bowel perforation.
Nine days after his surgery, the patient was finally transferred
to UMDNJ (who was not a defendant in this case) where he
was immediately brought into surgery and doctors removed
2.7 liters of pus from his belly. Unfortunately, by then,
all of the patient's organs were infected and his body went
into septic shock. There was no way for him to survive.
The Del Rio family was represented by Ronald P. Goldfaden
of Chatham, New Jersey and Jonathan T. Colby from Miami,
Florida.
