Comments on: Room for Improvement to Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations?

By: Craig Gordon

Craig Gordon — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:21:28 +0000

In Oct 2003 I had a serious accident that left me in a coma for 4 weeks with many skull and leg fractures. While I was in the coma, the hospital had a dentist (oral surgeon) perform a complicated eye surgery on my orbit, in addition to facial reconstruction. He was not only not qualified, and did not have an opthalmic surgeon present, but he permanently damaged my eye forever. He noted it in his records.

I was never told that an oral surgeon worked on my eye. ( I had about 60 different doctors during this time). I was never told that and error had been made. I was told that my eye problems I noticed after getting out of the coma were due to my serious accident.

The hospital staff and the oral surgeon told me that everything was perfect. during the next 3 years, I had 7 other eye surgeries to correct my double vision. Nobody every mentioned that a doctor had screwed up. One of the later surgeons committed another malpractice and I contacted an attorney. Upon record reveiw, it was discoverd that the dentist had performed my eye surgery and screwed up. 3 years and 3 months had passed. Its on appeal now. Im afraid I will just be screwed because of this totally unfair statute thing.

By: sheila kalkbrenner

sheila kalkbrenner — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:44:58 +0000

On 2/23/10 I was diagnosed with spinal arachnoiditis that was caused by spinal anesthesia with 5%lidocaine and epinephrine for a procedure done on 3/8/07. The diagnosing physician is willing to testify on my behalf and stated that the FDA took this concentration of lidocaine off the market for use as spinal anesthesia in 1994. 2% is the highest concentration considered acceptable. The lawyers I have spoken to have told me that there is nothing they can do because the statute of limitations has run out. I have spent the last three years trying to find out what was wrong with me. Now I know and there is nothing that I can do. This is a permanent condition. I had to stop working in November 2007. I am 40 years old. Even worse, I have reason to believe the hospital I went to is still using this anesthetic agent for this purpose.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:16:12 +0000

I recently discovered a surgery I had in 2006 was botched, but after the surgery, the surgeon said it was fine.

I live in NJ, but the surgery was in NY.

I’m penalized by the SOL because I trusted my surgeon.

Lawmakers should empower citizens – and get tough with doctors by holding them responisible, because citizens’ ability to know is limited by the very people who committed malpractice.

By: John M. Hochfelder, Esq.

John M. Hochfelder, Esq. — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:46:37 +0000

That seems like a fair compromise. Such an amendment will surely to bring on lots of litigation but in situations like the one you describe it seems there should be a chance for a patient to show he could not have known of the existence of his claim. Great post.