Parents say daughter’s stroke wasn’t identified
The Georgia parents of a young woman who died from a stroke following a series of alleged misdiagnoses are suing multiple practitioners, reports Legal Newswire and other news outlets
In June 2019, Michaela Smith was training for her job as a detention officer when she began experiencing a variety of symptoms, including headache, shortness of breath, throat swelling, and slurred speech. She was taken to the emergency department (ED) at Hamilton Medical Center, in Dalton, Ga.
There, she was examined by an attending ED doctor, who ordered a CT scan. The results were read by radiologist Michael J. Cooney, MD. In his reading, the Smith family’s lawsuit alleges, Dr. Cooney failed to identify the basilar artery sign, which is a key indicator of a vessel occlusion in stroke patients. Dr. Cooney concluded that Ms. Smith’s scan showed no acute intracranial abnormality. He sent her home without further discharge instructions.
At home, Ms. Smith fell asleep but awoke in an altered mental state, one of several classic stroke symptoms that she had been experiencing. She returned to the ED. This time, she was examined by David F. Hawkins, MD, an ED physician. Although his differential diagnosis identified Ms. Smith’s symptoms as most likely stroke related, Dr. Hawkins allegedly failed to immediately corroborate his findings with additional vascular imaging. Later in the day, Ms. Smith did undergo an MRI, which a second radiologist, Kevin F. Johnson, MD, misread as showing no signs of ischemia in her basilar artery, according to the lawsuit.
That same day, Dr. Hawkins conferred with a second neurologist, Jeffrey T. Glass, MD, who recommended that Ms. Smith be admitted to the hospital because of her deteriorating condition. The Smiths’ suit claims that Dr. Glass also failed to diagnosis their daughter’s underlying condition, although he did sign off on her transfer to Baroness Erlanger Hospital, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
There, Ms. Smith’s condition continued to worsen. She soon required mechanical ventilation and tube feeding. On July 3, 2019, she was pronounced dead.
“This is an egregious case of negligence,” said the attorney representing the Smiths, who are suing the physicians involved and their practices, as well as Hamilton Medical Center and several unnamed defendants.
“Although two radiology studies and her clinical presentation indicated that Michaela was having a catastrophic stroke, her doctors repeatedly misread the studies as normal, failed to diagnose the stroke, and failed to treat her deficits as a neurological emergency,” the family’s lawyer stated.
At press time, there had been no response from any of the defendants or their attorneys.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.