The average surgeon sees about 20 patients a day and with over 53,000 surgeons that is about 1,060,000 surgeries taking place daily. With those numbers, it poses no surprise that there are at least 1-4 of every 1,000 patients who have experienced anesthesia awareness. Anesthesia awareness is when a patient is awake during surgery though they were given anesthesia.
Anesthesiologists are among the top 10 specialties for lawsuits. If you believe that you are entitled to damages our Ft. Lauderdale medical malpractice attorneys will fight to get full compensation for you.
Understanding what actually took place is important when seeking to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Anesthesia awareness can be caused by not having enough anesthesia or by having a combination of anesthesia and neuromuscular blocking agents. The combination of the two has been known to dull the effects of anesthesia. Anesthesia awareness has been known to have multiple short and long-term effects.
Some patients recall only short moments as the anesthesia does cause most patients to have slight amnesia as to what happened before, during and moments prior to being awakened. This was not the case for a man who underwent surgery to repair his gallbladder. After his surgery, This man was so traumatized that the nightmares and daily terrors from the memories led to his suicide. His family filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital after his friends came forward and told of how he was awake during the surgery and the evocation of the incident left him numb and useless to his family.
There was a woman who was in the midst of an eye surgery when she began hearing music and voices giving instructions pertaining to the surgery being performed on her eye. To this day, she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and takes medication to help her manage the symptoms from the tragedy of being awake during her surgery. Her medical malpractice case was settled out of court, and she has dedicated her life to sharing information about anesthesia awareness.
The expectation of “going under” in terms of the scalpel and anesthesia is common. What one would not anticipate would be having an experience of being awake during the surgery. Yet, it is an unnervingly frequent medical malpractice that leaves patients struggling to cope with the terrifying tragedies that take place.
Because many people who have had anesthesia awareness do not like to discuss what happened, there are not as many patients who will come forward. Know that it is okay to share your story and get the justice you deserve. Lichtblau & Goldenberg attorneys have been representing Ft. Lauderdale medical malpractice clients for over 30 years. If you or a friend are in need of medical malpractice attorneys, contact the offices of Lichtblau & Goldenberg for a consultation today.