Emergency rooms are often busy, loud, and chaotic. Even so, hospitals and ER providers are required to triage and treat patients safely. The emergency department is where heart attacks, strokes, sepsis, internal bleeding, and other life-threatening conditions must be recognized and treated quickly. When staff miss the warning signs, delay critical testing, or send a patient home despite obvious red flags, the result can be permanent disability or death.

 

ER negligence can take many forms such as a patient with chest pain who is sent home without proper cardiac testing, someone with stroke symptoms who waits hours before being evaluated, a child with a high fever and lethargy who is sent home with Tylenol, or a patient with severe abdominal pain who never receives needed imaging. Sometimes the problem is poor communication between nurses and doctors; other times it is understaffing, rushed exams, or a failure to follow basic triage protocols. Families are often left replaying those few crucial hours, wondering how the outcome could have been so different.

In evaluating an emergency room case, we review triage notes, nursing assessments, physician documentation, orders for tests and medications, and the timing of every step. We ask whether the right questions were asked, whether the obvious tests were ordered, and whether concerning results were acted on quickly. We consult with emergency medicine and other specialists to determine whether the care you or your loved one received met the standard expected in a reasonable ER, given the information available at the time. If it did not, and that failure caused serious harm, we work to hold the hospital and providers accountable.

If you walked into an emergency room for help and left with a life permanently changed or if a loved one never made it home you deserve answers. Jeffrey Carey can help you investigate what really happened in the ER and pursue compensation where negligence played a role in the outcome.