Our client, Kimberly Hutson (name changed), age 57, was a longtime patient at West Side VA Hospital and Hines VA Hospital. During her time at the Hospital, Kimberly discovered that she could no longer move her legs or her arm. She was forced to move from her apartment to a nursing home, since she required personal assistance for all her daily activities. Kimberly's case is a sad story of medical negligence.

2 years prior to discovering her immobility, Kimberly was diagnosed with a cervical myelopathy, a condition of extreme pressure on the spine. She went through the necessary therapy and recovered almost completely. A few months prior to becoming immobile, Kimberly paid a visit to her general doctor, Gwen Garmon. He noticed a change and diagnosed hyper-reflexia and clonus in both of her legs. (If you have clonus, your foot keeps on jerking after a strike of the doctor's hammer, which usually implies injury to the spinal cord or brain.) Kimberly was not referred to a specialist. Six months later, Kimberly found herself at the emergency room of West Side VA. She had fallen down the stairs due to a weak grip and an unsteady walk. A neurologist, Cristina Orfei, ordered an MRI for Kimberly's neck. Unfortunately, a neurologist never reviewed the MRI and thus Kimberly was never evaluated as a surgical candidate. At court, an expert testified that surgery would have had a 70-80 percent chance of halting the progression of the disease. It was successfully proven that West Side VA Hospital doctors were negligent, and the judge awarded our client $5.7 million.