Location: WA State
My partner (48 F) was in a motorcycle accident in June of 2024. She was immediately taken to the hospital with 2 breaks in her left leg. The next 4 months were awful. A series of such shitty care from a major hospital and we are trying to figure out if we have a malpractice suit. Here are some things we think are key:
1 – They did not give us proper aftercare instructions after her first surgery. They only told us how to take care of the stitches and nothing else. The surgeon even mentioned being worried about the skin in her medical report but didn’t say anything to us. When we unwrapped it for the first time, she had these massive blisters and the surgeons office said it was normal but they just didn’t want to scare us? But still provided no instructions on what to do with them.
2 – The blistered skin slowly turned necrotic and the surgeons knew this in our first follow up but didn’t say anything about it to us. We know they knew because they put it in MyChart which we didn’t read until much later. The same surgeon also told her that he wasn’t gonna take any stitches out and then immediately started pulling them out. It was wild. We had to yell at him to stop. It was really bizarre.
3 – The necrotic skin got so bad that a muscle and skin graft was needed so a few months later we were back in the hospital. She watch the skin on her leg rotting off while they took their time booking the surgery. We only got it pushed up because we found a wound care clinic that called the hospital and made them book it sooner.
4 – She was sedated without her consent before her muscle graft surgery. She asked for an anti anxiety med and they gave her Versed which knows you out and causes temporary amnesia. She woke up post surgery disoriented and scared because she didn’t remember anything from before the surgery. They did not explain to myself or her that she was going to be sedated at that moment.
5 – During the muscle graft surgery, they put a nerve block in. But they put it in for her upper thigh instead of her calf (maybe because they thought she was gonna get the skin graft in the same surgery but they did them separately) For a week she had the nerve block in and it wasn’t actually numbing the surgical sight. It wasn’t until a different Advanced Pain Management doc came in that he was like “uh oh. that’s not right” and he took it out.
6 – When she went to her skin graft surgery about a week later (she was admitted the whole time between the muscle graft and skin graft) they refused to give her a nerve block for the thigh…. even though she has just had one in for no reason for a week. This caused a lot of unnecessary pain during her recovery. They excuse was “oh well we didn’t want to do that when she was under anesthesia” except they did the first one while we under anesthesia for the muscle graft.
7 – In October of 2024 she ended up with a bone infection and had a choice between 3 + surgeries to try and deal with infection or she could amputate because even wit h those 3 surgeries, there was no guarantee. She chose to amputate. Because the skin had ended up with so much damage and necrotic tissue she had to get a through knee (most similar to above the knee) amputation. They contemplated a below knee amputation but they skin damage was just a little too high up.
Summery – We believe that they screwed up all over the place with pain management, after care instructions, lack of informed consent ball over the place, and waiting so long to do a the skin and muscle graft that her skin rotted so much she wasn’t able to get a below knee amputation which is much easier to walk with on a prosthetic because you keep your knee. To be honest – we also feel like there was some medical racism as well but that’s hard to prove. She lost a lot of work/income and developed extreme anxiety around her medical appointments. Dealing with these surgeons and this hospital felt more traumatic than the actual accident.
Do we have a malpractice case? If so – what should I focus on when talking to an attorney?