I was admitted to Gulf Cost Hospital, Ft. Myers, Fl on 4/13/04 after flipping over a second story railing and fell approx. 15' headfirst onto a concrete surface below. I had broken both hands and wrists with the bones coming through the flesh in my right hand below the wrist and through my arm above the wrist.
An orthopedic surgeon was contacted to rebuild the hands and wrists and during a 9&1/2 hr. Surgery both wrists were sliced open and the bones were removed from both palms and replaced with metal plates, the broken bones treated and everything in the hands and wrists recconnected. The surgeon said there would be virtually no motion to my wrists and my hands would have no strength.
When I woke from the anesthesia I could hear the hospital staff pleading with the Dr. To release me as my hands were stable. The Dr. Refused saying he would have to keep me 2 days for observation.
I was released on the morning of 4/16/04 and because of the severity of the fall, I asked the hospital staff repeatedly if I had suffered any other injuries which I needed to be concerned about, as I had noticed that I had chipped a tooth which led me to beleive my head also struck the concrete. They repeatedly assured me that my hands and wrists were all I had injured. I was scheduled to have both hands and wrists hardcasted by the orthopedist in his office 4/20/04.
The Dr. Told me the injury was so severe that he ran out of the operating room in tears after the operation so that the nurses wouldn't see him and contined crying in the Dr.'s lounge over the pain I would be in the next several days and that was the first time in his career he had that type of emotional experiance.
I was in severe pain for most of the 2 days in the hospital after the operation. They could not get the pain under control and told me that I was being given the strongest pain medication allowable by law and if they increased it I would probably go into respiratory failure.
When I was brought to the hospital I had 2 prescription narcotic medications in my pockets. One was Xanax for anxiety attacks, and the other was roxicodone for pain in my neck and back from working long hours in construction. These meds. Should have been put in my room with my other personal items but were sent home with the person who drove me there. Narcotic medications are not to be handed to another person and the hospital staff kept telling me that the pain medication wasn't working because I was fighting the pain, however had they put my prescriptions in my room my Xanax would have relaxed my nerves enough for the pain medication to take affect.
I recieved very poor care in this hospital and since I had no insurance I was already being hassled about my payment very shortly after my procedure. The nurses on staff made me very aware of the dangers of recieving to much of this pain medication, however they were constantly having to ask me when I recieved my last shot (this is something that should have been recorded each time). They also sent 2 nurses in to explain that I needed to exercise my lungs every1/2 hr.By blowing into some type of plastic apparatus and that one of them would be sure to be in every 1/2 hr. To hand me the device. They never once came in to assist me after their explanation.
After being hardcasted I was driving on the Fl. Highways. I vomited every morning for 4 months and continually had dizzy spells. One morning as I thought I was running late, I jumped out of bed and blacked straight out onto the floor. I was having a very hard time with my memory functions and whatever I had last seen on the news the night before would affect where I would go to the next morning so that I was constantly ending up in the wrong place with no idea of what I was doing there. I had ringing in my ears, extreme anxiety, blurred vision which is still on a decline after I had spent $3600 on Lasik correction in 1999 and had remarkable results with 20/10 vision in both eyes.
The orthopedist told me my hands were healing well after 9 wks. Which I told my primary physician but asked him if my hands were doing fine why did I feel as if I were in the twilight zone. At that point he ordered my hospital records and shortly after receiving them contacted me and stated "No wonder you feel like that, every bone on the left side of your skull is broken."
The hospital sent me a $72,000 bill for 2&1/2 days of scary care. The first bill came from a collection agency and I disputed the bill stating that the hospital purposely lied about my condition and I would never pay and that if they planned to harras me about it I would make it public knowledge in the media. I was next billed by the hospitals attys. To which I sent the same reply. After that it was removed from my credit record.
There had been notations made in the hospital records about seeing a maxofacial surgeon and an opthamologist, however nothing had ever been said. I have in my possession 31 pages of medical records ans approx. 30 X-rays, proving the hospital was well aware of my condition, Vocational Rehab paid for me to see a maxofacial surgeon and he was shocked by the X-rays as they showed the triad which are 3 bones holding the cheek in place all being broken and he could not understand how my cheekbone did not wind up in my jaw.
To this day I still suffer from aches and pains throughout my neck, back, face and hands with headaches and dizzy spells, sinus problems and deteriorating vision. The most common side affects of as severe a head trauma as I suffered are siezures and blackouts. With the hospital lieing about my injuries and no physician telling me not to drive not only did they put my life at risk but they had absolutely no concern for public safety. Had I suffered a siezure or blackout while driving on a highway and lost control of my vehicle I could have been involved in something as disastrousas as running a schoolbus full of children down an embankment with a great loss of life which would have affected a great number of people. I can't believe that a hospital would put thier profits ahead of the safety of the public by not informing a patient as to his real injuries and possible side affects which could have had disastrous results.
I believe the hospital to be completely guilty of medical malpractice, but even worse because of thier non-caring attitude guilty of criminal negligence. There was an article written in the Ft. Myers News-Press, probably about a year ago in which it stated that the govt. Was considering taking away Lee County hospitals Medicare or Medicaid payments because they felt the health care in those hospitals was so poor that they were responsible for patient deaths.
I contacted personal injury attorneys all through this area for yrs. And always got basically the same response. Some just wouldn't take the case. Others wanted an exact injury to prove hospital negligence. Since they did not keep me for observation by a Neurologist who knows what mental affects I have suffered. I have not worked since the accident and was put on outrageous amounts of narcotics 360 30mg. Roxicodone and 120 2 mg. Xanax for 3&1/2yrs. I cannot make a carreer decision on which way to proceed even though I have 4 contractor licenses, 4 inspection cetifications, a presonal trainers license (I actually rehabilitated my hands and wrists and although there is pain, looking at them you would not know what they went through.)
The Personal Injury lawyer's commercials state that you have 2 years form the date of malpractice or2yrs. From when it was discovered which would make it more like about 6/23/04, however they say in special circumstances which I feel I have, that you have 4 years and when Floida lawyers are telling you one after another that you can't win a lawsuit against a lee or collier county Dr. Or hospital it left me no place to turn and I had several lawyers who were on there own actually explain to me that it costs $40-$50,000 to even start a malpractice case, even though they felt I had a strong case they could not afford to risk that kind of money when Collier and Lee County medical community had the reputation that they could not be touched I could find no help anywhere. I have all my medical records and a witness who was there when I was admiitted and released. Plus the fact that they dropped the bill after a letter mentioning the media. It's pretty bad when a hospital has such littrle regard for human life that hey would put a mentally and physically unfit patient out in the public and endanger anyone elses life also.
I'm out of options accept to contact the national media so hopefully you can be of help to me. I actually have another medical incident that hospitalized me last year because I was prescribed a medication as a sleep aid which had serious side affects and put me through 2 emergency operations, when I had asked for Ambien and was told Trazadone was safer and had no side affects (these doctors don't even know what thier prescribing.) That is another story which I will post as it has affected my life dramatically and I have the hospital records and the actual Dr.'s records of when I was put on that medication instead of the Ambien I asked for. I hope you can reach an atty. Or the media who can be of help to me on these outrageous medical foulups. These Dr. S in Fl. Are in such a hurry to make a buck that they rush patients in and out like an assembly line. It's no wonder improper prescribing of medication is creating so many deaths and the pharmaceutical reps. Just pushing the Dr.'s with incentives to move the pharmaceuticals.
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