Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

During emergency room visit 8/13/13 @ local hospital had head trauma. Drove myself in for preventive reasons;had root canal 8/20/13 developed bruising 8/19/13. Dr. ordered head C.T. scan to rule out bleeding. I was taken into scan room in my hospital bed (was unbalanced). Technician (Mike)came in asked me to roll onto scan table. I complied with difficulty (fibromyelgia, degenerative disc). Technician waited patiently as I completed the task with pain and obvious difficulty. Then Technician asked me to scoot up to top I was too low (lower part of table). I grabbed sides of table and gave a scoot and my head hit against metal shields (I was not warned about) used to hold patients head in place during scan. I immediately felt shocking pain through the right side of my upper body from head to neck. This turned into having to return to e.r. for pain, swelling and worsening symptoms, two follow up doctor visits for head contusion. I went in without pain and came out with pain due to their negligence. Of course this is my non-legal opinion. Hospital filed a report but in-house, I will be filing complaint Monday. I required second c.t. scan and was given pain medicine I was not suppose to be given to me because of my chronic illness. PLEASE ADVISE. THANK YOU


Asked on 8/23/13, 11:20 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Stone-Molloy The Lion's Law Office

I assume that your question is about whether or not you can sue the hospital? I'm not sure, because it appears you caused your own injury. It might be possible to claim it was negligent of the technician to not warn you to be careful of the metal shielding, but it's not a strong case and the injury doesn't seem to be very serious (head contusion). The case is not likely worth a great deal, so I doubt an attorney will accept it, especially since it would be a medical malpractice case, which are very difficult and very expensive to litigate. Be aware as well that the statute of limitations on a medical malpractice case is only ONE YEAR.

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Answered on 8/24/13, 10:15 am


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