Failure to Diagnose Heart Attack or Stroke

When you go the ER, you may be in a state of anxiety, distress and pain. In many cases, doctors and nurses in the ER make good calls and save lives. However, there are also situations in which ER physicians are overworked and stressed and fail to accurately diagnose and treat heart attack or stroke. A patient who is gravely at risk could be sent home or simply not triaged and treated appropriately. There are situations in which the stress of the ER environment results in a doctor failing to ask the right questions. The consequences can be devastating. If you were subject to failure to diagnose heart attack or stroke in an emergency room, you should call the experienced Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys. We have been fighting for best results for injured patients for more than thirty years.

Heart attacks and strokes can be terrifying. With a heart attack or myocardial infarction, the blood supply to your heart is significantly stopped or blocked. In some cases, when cholesterol builds up inside a blood vessel, plaque builds and cramps the muscles, which in turn kills cardiac cells. The affected person could be die or become seriously disabled. Signs of heart attack include discomfort, pain, excessive anxiety, nausea, abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, and breathing difficulties. Other symptoms include breathing, blackouts, and fainting. And some heart attack patients do not have chest pain, which makes it more likely they’ll be misdiagnosed.

If you went to the ER complaining of symptoms of heart attack and you were not appropriately treated so that you suffered a heart attack and the attendant losses, you may be able to recover damages. Suppose you reported that you’d blacked out and had discomfort and the ER nurse didn’t assess the possibility of heart attack during triage and sent you home. If you then suffered a massive heart attack and stroke that resulted in expensive care could have been prevented with better initial attention from the hospital, you might have grounds to sue for damages.

Stroke is another significant cause of death in Syracuse and elsewhere. It occurs when there’s a sudden interruption of blood supply to your brain, such that brain cells begin to die. Speedy diagnosis and treatment are critical to minimize the potential long-term consequences of stroke. A failure to make that assessment in a timely fashion whether in triage or while seeing a patient could result in liability for losses arising out of the stroke, such as loss of speech.

Not every failure to diagnose heart attack or stroke constitutes actionable medical malpractice, however. We will need to prove: (1) the defendant owed you a professional standard of care, (2) the defendant breached the professional standard of care, (3) causation and (4) damages. New York follows the locality rule, which means the professional standard of care in your case would depend on the accepted practices of competent ER providers in the Syracuse area and surrounding regions.

Our Syracuse lawyers can recover damages if we’re able to establish a defendant’s liability for your ER failure to diagnose heart attack or stroke. Damages could include compensation for both economic and noneconomic losses including medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of consortium.

There can be significant consequences for a patient who was not diagnosed with heart attack or stroke in a timely fashion. In some cases, patients die because of failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis by ER doctors. As the loved one of a patient who has died because of failure to diagnose in the ER, you may be able to recover wrongful death damages. Among other things, a wrongful death lawsuit may allow you to recover compensation for your loved one’s medical bills, lost income, lost inheritance, and funeral and burial expenses.

If you were injured or a loved one was killed as a result of failure to diagnose heart attack or stroke in an emergency room, you should talk with our seasoned Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers. DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys has more than 30 years of experience seeking best results for victims of malpractice in Canandaigua, Lowville, Auburn, Buffalo, Oneida, Utica, Rochester, Albany, Wampsville, Watertown, Herkimer, Oswego, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Binghamton, Elmira, and all of Upstate New York. For a free consultation, complete our online form or call us at 833-200-2000.