Chicago Accident and Injury Lawyer Blog

A recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that health-care associated infections, such as pneumonia and sepsis affect 1.7 million hospital patients each year. Nearly 50,000 of those patients die as a result. The researchers of the study, focusing on infections acquired by those patients undergoing elective surgeries, estimated that these infections result in longer hospital stays and cost more than 8 billion each year.

Hospital-acquired infections are typically infections that do not originate from a patient's original admitting diagnosis. Within hours after admission to a hospital, a patient is exposed to the bacteria living in the hospital. As with the prevention of the spread of the common cold and the flu, proper hand-washing and glove-wearing are the two most critical deterrents to spreading hospital-acquired infections. Regardless of whether you are a caregiver in a hospital or just a visitor, it is important to always properly wash your hands. The CDC provides the following guidelines for proper hand-washing:

• Wet your hands with clean running water and apply soap. Use warm water if it is available.
• Rub hands together to make a lather and scrub all surfaces.
• Continue rubbing hands for 15-20 seconds. Need a timer? Imagine singing "Happy Birthday" twice through to a friend.
• Rinse hands well under running water.
• Dry your hands using a paper towel or air dryer. If possible, use your paper towel to turn off the faucet.
• Always use soap and water if your hands are visibly dirty.

Continue reading " HOSPITAL ACQUIRED INFECTIONS STUDIED " »

There are few things more private than your medical records. Those in the medical field, including hospitals, doctors, dentists and even insurance companies have a duty to protect your confidential medical information. With the trend towards computerizing medical records for efficiency purposes, also comes the ability of thieves and hackers to get at such sensitive information. Currently, in the event of a breach, the keeper of medical records must notify the federal government, but only if that breach affects over 500 patients.

The recent federal stimulus bill passed by the Senate in early February 2010 intends to make billions of dollars available for the computerization of medical files. As with any initiative involving confidential information, the fear exists that such information will end up in the wrong hands or be used for the wrong purposes. Although computerized records can assist in a patient's ability to receive more comprehensive medical care, computerized records are more susceptible to theft. As a patient, you should inquire with your health care providers about how they are maintaining and storing your medical information. You should always be asked to sign a consent form that conforms with HIPAA Privacy Rules before any medical provider shares your information.

A recent Senate Finance Committee report revealed that the diabetes drug, Avandia, is linked with tens of thousands of heart attacks across the U.S. as reported by CNN. According to the report, the manufacturer of the drug, GlaxoSmithKline, knew of the risks associated with the drug for years but worked to keep them from the public. The Senate report was developed over the past two years by investigators who reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents provided by GlaxoSmithKline, the FDA and several research institutes, in addition to conducting numerous interviews. The investigation stems from concerns that Avandia and other high-profile drugs put "public safety at risk because the FDA has been too cozy with drug makers and has been regularly outmaneuvered by companies that have a financial interest in downplaying or under-exploring potential safety risks," the report states. According to the Senate report: • FDA scientists estimated in July 2007 that Avandia was associated with approximately 83,000 heart attacks since it was put on the market. • GlaxoSmithKline undertook attempts to undermine information critical of Avandia, including the attempted intimidation of independent physicians by GSK executives and the development of strategies to minimize or misrepresent findings that Avandia may increase cardiovascular risk. The Senate report does not address the issue of whether Avandia should be removed from the market.

A 30 year-old man was charged by police with three counts of leaving the scene of an accident on Saturday in which several people, including three pedestrians were injured. The man charged was driving a Toyota convertible eastbound on Division Street, when he ran a red light and hit a taxi that was heading northbound on Clark Street. The taxi hit a pole following the impact. The Toyota then hit another taxi before fleeing the scene of the accident. A total of five people were taken to area hospitals, including two passengers from the taxi and three pedestrians.

Students from a Wheaton, Illinois middle school were en route to a Shakespeare play in Chicago when the bus they were aboard rear-ended an automobile in Glen Ellyn. The students attend Monroe Middle School. The incident is being investigated.

We place our trust in the bus drivers who transport our children. We expect that proper maintenance is done on the vehicles and that proper background checks are performed on the drivers. School bus accidents are especially tragic because they involve our most precious cargo, our children.

Unfortunately, medical treaters may fail to diagnose a patient’s injuries after an injury-producing event. A patient involved in a major trauma is very likely to have multiple serious injuries. For example, an individual involved in a car crash or a construction site fall may have internal injuries in addition to obvious injuries, such as, broken bones or lacerations. The doctors treating the patient may properly focus on the obvious injuries, but fail to investigate any additional injuries or unforeseen conditions. This failure to diagnose may occur because of a failure to consider differential diagnoses, failure to order proper tests, a language barrier between patient and healthcare provider or the failure to otherwise consider additional injuries when there is a major trauma.

One cause of failure to diagnose injuries in a trauma situation is failure to determine that the injury is present. Injuries are often not visible to the naked eye. In many medical facilities throughout the world, trauma victims are assessed through the use of surveys developed by the American College of Trauma Surgeons in the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course. The primary survey identifies immediately life-threatening problems. Once those problems are treated, medical treaters use the secondary survey to conduct a detailed examination of the patient results in a complete catalog of their injuries.

According to some researchers, this system does not always work in practice. “It is not uncommon for the secondary survey to be curtailed or hindered by other priorities, with the result that complete catalogue of injuries is not identified at presentation.” Missed injury and the tertiary trauma survey, Volume 39, Issue 1, Pages 107-114 C. Thomson, I. Greaves. The tertiary trauma survey, in which formal repeated examination of the patient is undertaken has been suggested as a better alternative to identify injuries not readily identifiable at the initial presentation.

Another cause of failure to diagnose an injury is due to a language barrier. I recently wrote an article about the importance of effective communication between patients and health care providers. Certainly, language barriers can prevent a clear communication between a patient and medical treater. It is a hospital’s duty to provide a translator and under federal law, hospitals are required to do so if they receive federal funding.

Extra steps may be necessary to ensure that trauma patients are properly treated, but improved outcome and prevention of long-term disability or death is worth it.

Recently, the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science met and discussed the serious nature of mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions. Although over 1 million adults and children suffer mild traumatic brain injuries each year, the medical and legal fields usually ignore the severe effect such injuries have on a person's daily life. Often, such injuries cause neurological and cognitive problems that prohibit a person from properly functioning in society.

Doctors are now beginning to use neuroimaging techniques to study how mild traumatic brain injuries affect humans and animals. Within just a few days after a mild traumatic brain injury, doctors have found distinct changes throughout the white matter -- the brain tissue through which messages pass within the nervous system -- in the brain.

Such research is important because society at large does not take concussions or mild traumatic brain injury seriously enough. Proper diagnosis and treatment are critical to recover from such injuries. The Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Kroll is personal injury law firm experienced in handling traumatic brain injury cases. Please contact us today at (312) 676-7222.

With double digit unemployment rates, some courts are finding it more difficult to select jurors for trials running more than a couple of days. A recent story in the LA Times on the topic of recession woes affecting jurors has shown that in extreme cases, this reluctance to serve has escalated into rebellion.

In the past, financial woes have allowed for hardship exceptions allowing jurors to be relieved from jury service. This was especially true for those called to serve in long cases, the self employed wage earner or if the juror was a single, working parent. In today’s troubling environment, the difficult balance between economic hardship and a parties right to a jury trial is challenging lawyers.

The economic situation has put lawyers and judges in a very awkward situation as many potential jurors will not get paid if they are forced to serve. No pay could equal no future job. What many counties or cities are doing is raising the daily jury compensation to assist unemployed or financially strapped jurors. For example, in the City of Dallas, jurors are more willing to serve as their daily compensation has been raised from $6 to $40. Without financial incentives, it may be difficult to force people into jury service when it would deeply impact their ability to earn a living. The disgruntled jurors on your panel will only cause problems. A disgruntled juror can harbor resentment towards one or both parties and deliver injustice to a case.

What could possibly happen during this economic downfall is to make it more difficult for injured parties to recover full and fair compensation. While corporate America may not be sympathetic with victims bringing lawsuits, the working class sector of society does tend to understand and empathize with injured victims. Excluding those potential jurors due to financial hardship, can disadvantage injured parties seeking compensation.

According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), overweight men have a better chance of surviving an automobile crash, but only if they are wearing a safety belt. In a recent study performed at the UMTRI, it was determined that obese male drivers wearing a safety belt have a 22% lower probability of being killed if involved in a fatal crash than underweight male drivers wearing a safety belt. Obese males were categorized as those having a body mass index between 35 and 50, compared to underweight males having a body mass index between 15 and 18.4. The opposite was found to be true for unbelted male drivers, where the probability of being killed is 10% higher for obese males. The results were different for female drivers. The conclusion reached is that the findings suggest that the designs of airbags, safety belts and other components of occupant-restraint systems may need to be improved to better protect drivers and their passengers of different sizes.

A Frankfort woman who was standing on the shoulder of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) was killed after being struck by a semi truck on Monday, February 15, 2010 just before midnight. The semi truck was heading southbound. The woman had gotten out of her parked car on the highway near Crawford/Pulaski Avenue.

Yesterday, a woman suffered serious injuries when she was struck on the side of the road on I-80.

Pursuant to the Illinois Rules of the Road, the semi truck that struck the Frankfort woman should not have entered the shoulder of the highway. Specifically, 625 ILCS 5, Section 11-709.1(a) states:

Vehicles shall be driven on a roadway, and shall only be driven on the shoulder for the purpose of stopping or accelerating from a stop while merging into traffic. It shall be a violation of this Section if while merging into traffic and while on the shoulder, the vehicle passes any other vehicle on the roadway adjacent to it.

Further, "a vehicle shall be driven as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane and shall not be moved from such lane until the driver has first ascertained that such movement can be made with safety." 625 ILCS 5/11‑709.

This morning, a silver Lincoln Town Car heading eastbound on Interstate 80 slid on a patch of ice and struck a guardrail near Center Street in Joliet. As a female passenger was exiting the Lincoln, a Mercury Sable vehicle apparently slid on the same patch of ice and struck the female passenger and the Lincoln.

Illinois State Police reported that the passenger's injuries included a severed right leg, fractured right arm and left leg, a lacerated spleen and a punctured lung.

Winter driving is hazardous due to the road conditions. For this reason, drivers should be extremely vigilant on the road. Please drive carefully this winter.

Northwestern University's "Medill Reports Chicago" featured an article regarding a client of the Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Kroll, for whom Jeffrey J. Kroll and Heather Begley won a $135,000 jury verdict against the CTA. The article, entitled "Other subways move more people, but CTA leads in derailments," stated that the CTA has derailed 13 times since January of 2005 - more than both the New York City Subway System and the Washington Metro combined. Many of the derailments have been attributed to decrepit equipment and poor employee training.

In February of 2010, the Chicago Tribune reported that the CTA plans to pay $674 million to purchase new train cars and retire train cars that have been in use since as far back as 1969. Let's hope that the purchase of the new train cars is a step in the direction of increased safety initiatives for the CTA and helps avoid derailments.

Early this morning, a motorist lost control of his vehicle while attempting to make a turn and struck the Duwell Fish Company on 617 S. Pulaski Road. The vehicle did not enter the restaurant, which was closed for business at the time, but it did destroy a brick column that holds up the roof. The driver of the vehicle was injured and taken to the hospital. He was also cited for negligent driving and failure to reduce speed. Fortunately, there were no injured pedestrians, likely due to the time at which the accident occurred.

On Tuesday February 9th, 2010, an elderly woman was hit and killed by a snow plow while she was walking as a pedestrian on the 1300 block of West Morse Avenue. The snow plow was apparently reversing into a driveway at about 2:15 p.m. when it struck the woman, according to police. The driver was cited for failing to exercise due care for a pedestrian in the roadway and for failing to use due caution when reversing his vehicle.

New research suggests that standard tests to determine brain activity may overlook patients who have some consciousness. The new test used by researchers in Britain and Belgium is called a functional MRI. The results of their study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers emphasized that only a few of the patients they tested showed evidence of mental awareness. Further, it is not clear to what degree the patients are conscious.

Researchers noted that the positive signals appeared only in people with traumatic brain injury. Those whose brain injuries resulted from oxygen deprivation did not show consciousness.

To test the patients in the study, researchers asked vegetative and minimally conscious persons to imagine two situations. One scenario involved standing on a tennis court hitting a ball to an instructor and the other was navigating familiar streets or walking from room to room in their homes. In some of the patients, the brain scan used by researchers, a functional MRI, showed different patterns of brain activity for each scenario.

Continue reading " NEW STUDY REVEALS SOME BRAIN ACTIVITY IN PEOPLE IN "VEGETATIVE" STATE FROM TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY " »

The Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Kroll now has a fan page on Facebook.com. Visit the Chicago personal injury firm's page on Facebook for news updates and become a fan!

With Chicago winter in full force, it is important to remember safety while sledding with your children, especially those under 14 years of age. Sledding injuries can be serious, causing lifelong disability or death. Since younger children have proportionally larger heads and higher centers of gravity than older children, they are more prone to injuries.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons provides the following safety tips for winter sledding:

• No matter how tempting, do not permit your children to sled on public streets.
• Make sure your child is sitting in a forward-facing position while sledding.
• Sled only in designated and approved areas where there are no trees, posts, fences or other obstacles in the sledding path.
• Supervise your children while sledding. To avoid collisions, make sure there aren't too many children sledding in one area.
• It is preferred for young children to wear fitted helmets while sledding.
• Chose sleds that have steering mechanisms when possible.
• Only sled in well-lighted areas in the evening.
• Do not use plastic sheets or other materials for sledding.
• Protect your children from injury and cold by dressing them in layers of clothing.

By following these simple safety tips, you can ensure that your children not only have fun in the snow, but are also well protected from injury. The Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Kroll hopes that you and your family have a safe and fun winter.

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday, February 4th, that caps on awards in medical malpractice cases violate the Illinois Constitution. This is the third time that the Court has rejected legislatures' attempts to impose such caps.

The case, Lebron v. Gottlieb Hospital target= "_blank", involves a girl who suffered a brain injury during delivery at Gottlieb Hospital. The law that the Court deemed unconstitutional capped the maximum non-economic damages that could be awarded in a medical malpractice case against a single doctor at $500,000. The law also set a $1 million limit on damages against hospitals and staff.

The court was not persuaded by medical malpractice caps in place in other states. Justice Fitzgerald, writing for the court, stated: "That 'everybody is doing it' is hardly a litmus test for the constitutionality of the statute." Justices Freeman, Kilbride and Burke joined the decision.

Fans of the television show "Boston Legal" will be sad to learn that actor Justin Mentell was found dead near his crashed Jeep near a rural highway in Wisconsin. He played Garrett Wells, an attorney on the popular TV show. Mentell, who was just 27 years-old and a native of Waukegan, Illinois, was killed when his Jeep went down a steep embankment and hit two trees. Mentell attended Waukegan High School and Northern Illinois University. According to reports, there is no indication that drugs or alcohol played a factor in the crash, although toxicology reports won't be available for several weeks.