Rapoport Sims Perry & VanOverloop has obtained a $1,800,000 settlement for their clients in a case involving the death of a 48 year-old hospital patient in Lake County, Illinois. Several days after the patient was admitted to the hospital, a physician ordered a STAT venous duplex ultrasound to investigate his suspicion that the patient had developed deep vein thrombosis in her right leg. However, the ordered ultrasound test was never performed, and the following day the patient died of a blood clot that originated in the patient’s right leg and traveled to her lungs causing a pulmonary embolism.
The case was prosecuted by trial attorney Melanie J. VanOverloop of Rapoport Sims Perry & VanOverloop. They argued the hospital’s failure to carry out the doctor’s order was the result of both institutional negligence and nursing negligence, and because the test was not performed the patient’s deep vein thrombosis was not was not diagnosed or treated, directly resulting in the patient’s death the following day.
