May 2010.  Lewis Johs partner, F. Sean Rooney, obtained a defendants’ verdict in Supreme Court, Nassau County, for his client, an internist, in a matter involving claims of medical malpractice and wrongful death.  The matter involved a claim for failure to provide deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis to a fifty-four year-old woman who was hospitalized following five rib fractures.  Plaintiff claimed that defendants failed to utilize sequential compression devices upon her admission to the hospital.  Blood thinning medications could not be used due to the evidence of possible bleeding in the lung.

Plaintiff decedent suffered a collapse thirty-nine hours after admission to the hospital. The collapse was caused by pulmonary embolism and embolic stroke.  Plaintiff decedent was found to have a Factor II mutation which is a congenital (inherited) condition in which blood clots more rapidly than in patients without such mutation.  Plaintiff also suffered from a patent foramen ovale (hole in the heart).  Both of  these medical conditions were not known to the defendants.  It was determined that blood clots that were found in the lung also passed through the hole in the heart to cause a fatal left middle cerebral artery embolic stroke.

The jury found that the defendants rendered appropriate care and returned a defendants' verdict.