Injection Missed the Mark Causing Serious Nerve Damages March 4, 2010.

The injection was supposed to help the patient with her pain. Instead, it caused serious nerve damage.

Medical malpractice takes on a variety of different forms, and even though most people tend to think of it as being wrong surgery, wrong medications given or the wrong patient operated on, med mal may also take the form of a misplaced injection.

Consider the difficult case of Anne Morton (name has been changed to protect the victim’s identity). "Anne was totally paralyzed from the chest down immediately after a cervical injection of depo medrol. The injection hit her artery and the medication dispersed to her brain and spinal cord, causing nerve damage and lesions," explained Christopher Mellino, of the Mellino Law Firm LLC in Cleveland, Ohio.

While Anne has made a good recovery from this frightening and life-altering incident, she continues to have extreme difficulty walking, as she still has no feeling from the waist down. To say that she faces challenges daily is an understatement. "The pain medication was intended to go into the nerve root and block pain signals to her brain. The physician was negligent in hitting the artery and further exacerbating things by injecting the pain medication. That mistake ultimately caused permanent partial paralysis," said Mellino.

Medical malpractice is horrific and in some states, cases are confounded by a medical malpractice cap on damages. "What that means is if Anne were to be awarded a very large settlement, it would be capped so she would only receive the designated amount outlined in the legislation; for instance $250,000 or $350,000. This is not enough for someone with catastrophic injuries like this, who every day has to cope with a shattered life thanks to the medical malpractice of a doctor," added Mellino.

In Illinois, the Supreme Court has recently struck down the state’s medical malpractice law, indicating it allows lawmakers to interfere with a judge’s ability to reduce verdicts. This ruling, which challenges the constitutionality of damage caps, is being watched closely. Its long-term consequences may have quite the impact on the way medical malpractice law is handled in Illinois and it may also set a precedent in other states with caps.

In cases like this one, why should an innocent victim face a life they never asked for because of the negligence of a medical professional whose job it is to "get it right" the first time? "Anne is no longer able to work, has had to renovate her home to allow her easier access to various rooms with her walker, faces taking medications for the rest of her life and daily pain – all because of an injection given in the wrong manner," added Christopher Mellino, of the Mellino Law Firm LLC in Cleveland, Ohio.

Anyone facing something like this as a result of medical negligence needs to talk to a Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer and find out how to ensure that justice is done.