What should have been a routine evaluation for a woman in Armstrong County turned into a harrowing battle for survival due to a series of avoidable medical oversights. In November 2021, Patricia, a 59-year-old woman, sought medical help for post-menopausal bleeding—a classic “red flag” symptom that every gynecologist knows requires immediate investigation for endometrial cancer.
While it is true that the risk of stroke increases with age, strokes in young adults, teenagers, and even children are rising. Currently, 10% to 15% of all strokes occur in people between the ages of 18 and 50. Despite this, Emergency Rooms frequently operate on an “age bias.” When a 70-year-old walks in with slurred speech, the stroke team is activated immediately. When a 25-year-old or a child presents with the exact same symptoms, doctors often look for “more likely” explanations like intoxication, migraines, or vertigo.
One day, your mother is her normal self—doing crossword puzzles, chatting on the phone, and managing her own medications. The next day, you visit and she is a different person. She doesn’t know what year it is. She is talking to people who aren’t there. She is agitated, aggressive, or unusually lethargic. Your mind immediately races to the worst-case scenarios: Is this a stroke? Is this sudden onset dementia? Alzheimer’s?
If your son woke up in severe pain or complained of sudden agony after sports practice, you likely rushed him to the Emergency Room expecting immediate answers. You trusted the doctors to rule out the most dangerous conditions first. However, far too many parents are sent home with a diagnosis of a “groin strain,” “epididymitis,” or a vague viral infection, only to return hours or days later to find that their son has lost a testicle permanently.
It often starts with something minor: a scrape from a fall, a small cut while gardening, a surgical incision, or even a bug bite. You clean it, bandage it, and expect it to heal. Within hours, the situation changes. The area becomes swollen and hot. A red rash begins to spread visibly across the skin. Most terrifyingly, the pain is agonizing—far worse than you would expect from such a small injury.
It often happens without warning. One moment you are lifting weights, straining during a bowel movement, or simply sitting at work. The next, you are struck by a headache of terrifying intensity. Patients often describe it as being hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
The scenario is terrifyingly common: You or a loved one experience a sudden, splitting headache. Maybe your vision blurs, or you feel dizzy. You rush to the Emergency Room, terrified something is wrong with your brain. But because you are young—perhaps in your 30s or 40s—or because you have a history of headaches, the doctor is quick to reassure you.
A misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis becomes malpractice if the delay caused the patient’s condition to worsen significantly, resulting in a more difficult treatment, permanent injury, or a lower chance of survival. This is legally known as the “Loss of Chance” doctrine. If the delay turned a treatable Stage I condition into a terminal Stage IV crisis, the doctor is liable for the harm caused by that lost time.
In the high-pressure environment of an Emergency Room, the difference between life and death often comes down to a single decision: the decision to test or the decision to discharge. For a 36-year-old man from Indiana County, that decision was fatal. He presented to a local hospital with the classic warning signs of a vascular catastrophe, yet he was sent home with a misdiagnosis of a minor ailment. Hours later, he was gone, leaving behind a mother for whom he was the entire world.
Recovering from a hysterectomy is supposed to be the start of a healthier chapter in your life, free from the pain or bleeding that necessitated the surgery in the first place. You expect some soreness and fatigue, but you do not expect to be constantly wet, leaking fluid that you can’t control, or suffering from unexplained, severe back pain.
It is a terrifying scenario that plays out in living rooms across Pennsylvania far too often. Your loved one was treated in the Emergency Room or underwent surgery. The doctors said everything went well. They signed the discharge papers, handed you a packet of instructions, and sent you home. But within 24 to 48 hours, something changes. They become hot to the touch. They start shivering. But most alarmingly, they aren’t making sense. Maybe they don’t know where they are, they are slurring their speech, or they are excessively sleepy and hard to wake.
Many clients come to us not only looking for accountability, but also hoping that by pursuing a lawsuit, they can help prevent the same harm from happening to someone else. It’s one of the most important and compassionate reasons to take legal action. But after a lawsuit is filed, do doctors and hospitals really learn from their mistakes? The answer is: sometimes yes – but not always.
