Opioid Overdoses Can Happen, Even in a Hospital!

Opioid Overdoses Can Happen, Even in a Hospital!
Mar 7, 2018

Whenever you turn on the news, there’s a good chance you will hear something about the opioid crisis. For many of us, the crisis is more personal as it reaches into our families, circle of friends or workplace. It is an epidemic that requires a lot of money to treat and real solutions from our elected officials to prevent. One effort that we are seeing is that states, counties and cities are suing the manufacturers of opioid drugs for distributing them in far greater numbers than were needed, and for misleading the public about the dangers of opioids.

Last year, we had the opportunity to represent a man who lost his wife to an opioid overdose. When we hear of overdoses, we often think about a person using drugs illegally or overdosing at home. In the case we tried before a Cobb County jury last year, our client’s wife overdosed on opioids while a patient at a hospital! She had been prescribed two different opioid painkillers to take orally and was also on an opioid pain pump, all prescribed by a physician and administered by nurses who were supposed to monitor her. Opioids are very powerful, and the combination of these drugs began to impact her breathing and she eventually went into respiratory failure. While doctors were able to resuscitate her, she died a few months later from her injuries suffered that day. Fortunately, a Cobb County jury agreed with our case that a person should not overdose on opioids in a hospital and returned a verdict for our client. You can learn more about our case here.

Cases like the one we worked on are rare, but complications in hospitals do occur and sometimes nurses fail to properly monitor their patients. If you or a loved one has suffered an injury in a hospital that you believe could be due to someone’s negligence, please give us a call for a free case evaluation.

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