May 17, 2002

$17.5 MILLION DOLLAR SETTLEMENT OBTAINED ON BEHALF OF 37 YEAR-OLD STROKE VICTIM IN MALPRACTICE ACTION
AGAINST NORTHWESTERN MEDICAL FACULTY FOUNDATION

Late yesterday, near the conclusion of a two week jury trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hogan, Thomas A. Demetrio, of the law firm Corboy & Demetrio, P.C., obtained a $17.5 Million Dollar settlement on behalf of Chicagoan Elizabeth Riley in a medical negligence action against the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. The settlement was acquired the day before final arguments were to be presented.

Elizabeth Riley, then age 33, suffered a hemorrhagic stroke on June 14, 1998, when a large aneurysm in one of the arteries in her brain ruptured. The catastrophic hemorrhage which followed caused extensive damage to Elizabeth's brain, leaving her with only limited movement of her left arm, and her memory and her cognitive abilities severely impaired. Elizabeth is currently a resident in a local nursing home. A former fashion model and manager for MAC Cosmetics at Marshall Field's, Elizabeth now struggles to reclaim the most basic aspects of speech and the ability to navigate in her electric wheelchair on her own.

Demetrio stated that ten days prior to the catastrophic aneurysmal rupture and hemorrhage of June 14, 1998, Elizabeth had presented to the Emergency Room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with complaints of the "worst headache" of her life, nausea, vomiting and neck stiffness, all of which occurred suddenly that day.

Demetrio said that the testimony of two of the most eminent neurosurgeons in the country, Dr. Hunt Batjer of Chicago, and Dr. Robert Cantu, formerly of Boston's Harvard Medical School, established that Elizabeth had suffered a "warning leak" from the aneurysm on June 4, 1998. Before the court and jury, Dr. Cantu explained that her symptoms on June 4, 1998 were "classic" signs of a warning leak and explained for the jury how the leaking of a small amount of blood from the aneurysm triggered her symptoms of sudden onset of "worst headache," nausea, vomiting and neck stiffness which brought Elizabeth to the emergency room:

When one has leaked an aneurysm, you, essentially, are starting a clock because the most dreaded consequence of that leak is a subsequent rather massive hemorrhage, and that happens within the next seven to ten days. And that's why the individual during that period of time when suspected of having an aneurysm needs to be very promptly worked up to determine if there is an aneurysm, and ...that's usually done on CAT scan. And if the individual is in good medical condition, the surgery would normally follow in the next 24, 48 hours ... because you want to get that surgery in before the patient has had the chance to have that second hemorrhage.

Demetrio explained to the jury that this triad of symptoms (sudden onset of "worst headache," vomiting and neck stiffness) is considered highly suspicious for an aneurysmal leak (bleeding into the protective layers of the brain, known as "subarachnoid hemorrhage") and why the applicable standard of care required that the emergency room physician, an employee of Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, who saw Elizabeth on June 4th, should have ordered a CT Scan and lumbar puncture which would have confirmed with 100% accuracy the diagnosis of the leaking aneurysm. This, according to expert testimony, would have allowed for timely surgical intervention which would have assured a greater than 90% likelihood of a full and complete recovery for Elizabeth. Even in the face of this testimony, the emergency room doctor continued to maintain at trial that his diagnosis of "acute neck sprain" was the only diagnosis he was required to make, according to Demetrio, who added that the Emergency Department physician discharged Elizabeth on June 4th with Tylenol for her "neck sprain."

Using a textbook authored by one of the defense experts and the electronic textbook published by the treating emergency room physician himself, Demetrio systematically extracted and occasionally hammered out testimony on cross-examination from the defendant's own witnesses in support of his argument that the failure to elicit a proper medical history regarding Elizabeth's chief complaint of "worst headache" had lead to the mis-diagnosis of SAH, a condition that even medical students and resident physicians are trained to recognize as a "medical emergency" on the basis of Elizabeth's presenting symptoms.

Demetrio stated that the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation supplies physicians for Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which was not a defendant in the lawsuit.