Tom Yost, Author at Injury Lawyers

Compartment Syndrome, Post-Operative Onset

Posted on April 17, 2018July 25, 2024 by Tom Yost

Compartment syndrome is a potentially devastating post-operative complication in which increased pressure results in insufficient blood supply to muscle and nerve tissue within the effected internal space. Causes of compartment syndrome in the post-operative patient include: being left too long in a position during surgery that blocked one or more blood vessels; or, having bandages or casts too tightly applied.

This medical condition can arise in response to bleeding and/or swelling in any area of tissue that has little or no capacity to expand because it is covered by fascia, a tough, inflexible membrane. The role of fascia is to cover and hold muscle tissue in place, but its strength and lack of elastic properties means that in the event there is bleeding or swelling beneath this rigid layer, the fascia will not stretch to relieve the pressure building beneath it. Instead, the fascia layer holds the swelling or bleeding in place, which creates crushing pressure that cuts off the blood supply to the muscle and nerve tissue below. Compartment syndrome occurs most often in the legs, but it can also affect the arms, hands, feet, and buttocks.

Acute compartment syndrome (ACS) is a surgical emergency, and unless the pressure within the effected space is relieved quickly and blood flow to the affected muscle and nerve cells is rapidly restored, necrosis of the soft tissues and permanent disability may occur. The most important factor of outcome is early recognition and speedy surgical intervention to open the fascia (fasciotomy).

The five Ps (pain, pallor, pulselessness, paralysis and paresthesia) are taught as the clinical symptoms of compartment syndrome. Pain is typically ‘out of proportion’ to the injury and is severe enough to require increasing the dosage of pain medication.

If the compartment pressure is left untreated or the diagnosis is delayed, severe rhabdomyolysis, irreversible nerve and/or muscle damage, loss of limb, or even death may occur. Compartment syndrome warrants prompt evaluation and treatment by a trained medical professional.

If you or a loved one has suffered permanent injury due to acute compartment syndrome, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). The attorneys at Yost Legal Group are experienced, caring professionals ready to investigate your claim with compassion and determination. Call us today to receive a free, confidential consultation about your possible case. We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you will never pay an attorney’s fee up front, and you owe us nothing unless we win your case.

Chorioamnionitis

Posted on March 8, 2018July 25, 2024 by Tom Yost

Chorioamnionitis is a serious complication during labor that may result in serious, irreversible injuries to the mother and child at birth. Affecting approximately 10% of pregnancies, this condition is also known as intra-amniotic infection (IAI). Chorioamnionitis is characterized by inflammation and infection of the fetal membranes (amnion and chorion) due to a bacterial infection. This intrauterine infection typically occurs when bacteria ascends from the vagina, through the cervix and into the uterus. This condition is most often associated with prolonged labor.

Maternal fever is the most important clinical sign of chorioamnionitis. A temperature greater than 100.4°F is considered abnormal in pregnancy. Chorioamnionitis is most commonly diagnosed based on clinical signs, which should be discovered by the physician during examination. Findings of rapid heart rate (maternal tachycardia and/or fetal tachycardia), a mother’s elevated white blood cell count (leukocytosis), uterine tenderness, and/or malodorous amniotic fluid or vaginal discharge can also aid in diagnosing chorioamnionitis. However, accessing the amniotic fluid or the placenta for culture can be invasive and is sometimes dangerous.

Carefully monitoring the mother’s temperature, especially when labor is prolonged, is an effective way to avoid this potentially deadly complication. A timely diagnosis, with prompt antibiotic treatment and delivery may help reduce the potentially devastating outcome of maternal and neonatal infections. If left untreated, chorioamnionitis can cause sepsis, premature birth and brain damage in babies affected.

The cost of care for a child with cerebral palsy, or any birth injury, is very high. If your child’s birth injury was caused by chorioamnionitis or other intrauterine infection, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE. We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you will never pay an attorney’s fee up front, and you owe us nothing unless we win your case.

Incompetent Cervix

Posted on February 15, 2018July 25, 2024 by Tom Yost

An incompetent cervix, also called a cervical insufficiency, is a potentially serious condition of pregnancy that occurs when weak cervical tissue causes or contributes to premature birth or the loss of an otherwise healthy pregnancy. This type of condition has been described by experts as a “diagnostic dilemma”. Because an incompetent cervix can often be difficult to diagnose, physicians should be constantly on the alert for this condition.

If there is any suspicion of this condition, a health care provider could recommend preventive medication during pregnancy (progesterone supplementation), frequent ultrasounds and/or a procedure that surgically closes the cervix with strong sutures (cervical cerclage). Medical management of pre-term labor is also extremely important, including attempts to stop labor and, too, to provide corticosteroid injections if delivery becomes imminent (which “matures” premature fetal lungs, giving “preemies” a better chance to breathe successfully once born).

The causes of incompetent cervix vary and must be determined in a timely matter by medical professionals in order to select the proper method of treatment. If proper care is not taken, extreme premature birth can result, which increases risks of complications in the newborn, such as intraventricular brain bleeds and periventricular leukomalacia which can cause cerebral palsy.

The cost of care for a child with cerebral palsy, or any birth injury, is very high. If your child’s brain injury was caused by a complication of premature birth, including cervical incompetence, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you will never pay an attorney’s fee up front, and you owe us nothing unless we win your case. The attorneys at Yost Legal Group are experienced, caring professionals ready to investigate your claim with compassion and determination. Call us today to receive a free, confidential consultation about your possible case. At The Yost Legal Group, there is no fee or expense unless you recover.

Vacuum Extraction And Subgaleal Hematoma

Posted on January 30, 2018July 26, 2024 by Tom Yost

Approximately 5% (1 in 20) of all deliveries in the United States are operative vaginal deliveries. An operative vaginal delivery refers to a physician’s use of either forceps or a vacuum device when a woman’s labor has stalled. Over time, the rate of operative vaginal delivery has been steadily decreasing. However, the number of vacuum-assisted deliveries has been increasing. It is vital that vacuum extraction is done correctly by a trained medical professional.

The vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery procedure involves placing a small round cup on the baby’s head, which attaches to a vacuum pump creating suction to provide traction to gently pull the baby out of the birth canal. If performed incorrectly, one of the most dangerous complications of a vacuum extraction delivery is called a subgaleal hematoma (SGH). This is a potentially fatal accumulation of blood beneath the scalp of the newborn which can be caused by too much suction and/or the wrong-sized suction cup damaging blood vessels beneath the baby’s scalp resulting in hemorrhage. This type of injury has been known to cause life-threatening blood loss, hypovolemic shock, permanent brain damage, neurological injuries and more specifically, cerebral palsy (CP).

The frequency of subgaleal hematomas after vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery ranges from 26 to 45 per 1000 deliveries. In the hands of an inexperienced or untrained physician, a vacuum-assisted delivery can cause you and your child serious and permanent injuries. The cost of care for a child with cerebral palsy, or any birth injury, is very high. If your child’s birth injury was caused by a complication during vacuum-assisted or forceps-assisted delivery, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

Vacuum-Assisted Delivery And Birth Injury

Posted on September 20, 2017August 5, 2024 by Tom Yost

Sometimes, during the labor and delivery process, the baby needs a little help getting through the birth canal. Approximately 1 out of 20 vaginal deliveries in the United States result in some form of assistance being required. Prolonged labor can be dangerous to the baby as well as extremely painful and exhausting to the mother. Two common forms of assisted delivery, used by medical providers to when labor is stalled, are vacuum extraction and forceps delivery.

Vacuum extraction involves placing a small round cup on the baby’s head, which attaches to a vacuum pump creating suction to help guide the baby out of the birth canal. If performed incorrectly, suction during vacuum extraction can cause permanent and even life-threatening injuries, including: massive bleeding (hemorrhage and hypovolemic shock) beneath the scalp or within the brain (intracranial hemorrhage and encephalopathy); brain damage; skull fracture; and, retinal hemorrhage. Forceps delivery (another assisted delivery method), can also cause skull fractures, skull bleeding, and bruising on the baby’s head and face. These injuries have been known to cause permanent brain damage, neurological injuries and more specifically, cerebral palsy (CP).

In the hands of an inexperienced or untrained physician, a vacuum-assisted or forceps-assisted delivery can cause you and your child serious and permanent injuries. The cost of care for a child with cerebral palsy, or any birth injury, is very high. If your child’s birth injury was caused by a complication during vacuum-assisted or forceps-assisted delivery, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you will never pay an attorney’s fee up front, and you owe us nothing unless we win your case. The attorneys at Yost Legal Group are experienced, caring professionals ready to investigate your claim with compassion and determination. Call us today to receive a free, confidential consultation about your possible case. A The Yost Legal Group, there is no fee or expense unless you recover.

Paralysis Caused By Spinal Surgery

Posted on September 13, 2017August 2, 2024 by Tom Yost

An ideal outcome in spinal surgery is dependent of the coordination of efforts by the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and neurophysiologist. Because patients are under general anesthesia during surgery, techniques for examining the nervous system for potential injuries can be somewhat limited. Intraoperative spinal cord monitoring (IOM) allows the surgeon to record the electrical signals transferred along the spinal cord and use this recording to prevent neural irritation or spinal cord injury during surgery.

Electrodes are placed on the patient’s body to monitor and record nerve signal responses throughout the spinal surgical procedure. The most common forms of spinal cord monitoring during surgery are EMG (electromyography), SEP (somatosensory evoked potentials) and MEP (motor evoked potentials). Ideally, this is done in an efficient manner without interrupting the flow of the operation and producing unnecessary interruptions.

The monitoring personnel must be able to detect and understand the source of any variables in spinal cord signals in order to deal with them appropriately. An intra-operative disruption or complete loss of spinal cord electrical signals in the appropriate monitoring channels (either SEP sensors, MEP sensors, or both) is clearly an indication of significant disturbance of spinal cord function. If this is not recognized and sensation is not restored during the spinal surgery, severe spinal cord and/or spinal nerve root injury, up to and including partial or total paralysis, may occur.

If you or a loved one has suffered permanent neurological injury and/or paralysis due to a complication during spinal surgery, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

The attorneys at Yost Legal Group are experienced, caring professionals ready to investigate your claim with compassion and determination. Call us today to receive a free, confidential consultation about your possible case. At The Yost Legal Group, there is no fee or expense unless you recover.

Mismatched Blood Transfusion And Transfusion Reaction

Posted on August 29, 2017June 17, 2025 by Tom Yost

A blood transfusion is a common medical procedure in which donated blood is provided to a patient through a narrow tube (IV catheter) placed within a vein in the arm. Blood transfusions become medically necessary for many reasons, including a need to replace blood in patients who suffer significant bleeding as the result of a major surgery or accidental injury. Blood transfusions are also needed by patients with blood disorders which interfere with their body’s ability to manufacture blood and/or blood components, such as blood platelets.

The four major blood groups (A, B, AB, and O) are determined by the presence or absence of specific antigens (on the surface of red blood cells) and specific antibodies (in the blood plasma). Every person has an ABO blood type, and is either blood type A, B, AB or O. In addition, all blood is designated by its Rh factor, depending on whether or not it contains another blood cell surface antigen, called the Rh factor. Blood is either Rh-positive (if the Rh factor antigen is part of the surface of its red blood cells) or Rh-negative (if its red blood cells do not include Rh factor antigens). There are very precise ways in which blood types must be matched for a safe transfusion. The blood donor and the recipient must have their blood types checked and cross-matched to ensure that the recipient’s immune system will not attack the donor blood.

If incompatible blood is given during a transfusion (donor and recipient blood types do not match), the donor cells are treated as if they were foreign invaders, and the patient’s immune system attacks them accordingly. This creates life threatening complications for the patient. If a transfusion reaction occurs, it renders the blood transfusion useless and can cause a potentially overwhelming activation of the transfused patient’s immune system and blood clotting system. This may result in the patient going into shock, kidney failure, circulatory collapse, and death.

The safe and effective administration of blood transfusion procedures involves the coordinated care of a variety of professional groups including nurses, doctors, laboratory scientists and blood banks. With that being said, there is absolutely no excuse for a patient receiving an incompatible blood transfusion. This preventable, careless medical mistake is often referred to as a “never event” – a patient treatment error that should under no circumstances occur.

If you or a loved one feel you are the victim of a medical mistake, contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

Group B Strep Infection Causing Birth Injury

Posted on August 9, 2017July 25, 2024 by Tom Yost

Group B streptococcus (GBS), is a bacterium that can cause serious infections in newborn babies. It is one of many types of streptococcal bacteria, commonly referred to as “strep.” Approximately one in three to four pregnant women in the US carries GBS. It is found in the lower part of the digestive system (colon) and/or in the vagina.

GBS is not harmful to healthy adults but is extremely dangerous for newborn infants when found in pregnant women. Signs and symptoms of neonatal GBS are often very difficult to detect. Newborns who are infected with GBS can develop pneumonia (lung infection), sepsis and septic shock (systemic infection, with or without organ failure), meningitis (infection of the lining of the brain and spinal cord), and septicemia (blood infection).

Complications associated with neonatal GBS can be prevented by giving an intravenous antibiotic during labor to any woman whose baby is at risk of GBS infection. These women can be identified by bacteriological screening, involving taking swabs from the vagina and rectum, or by risk-factor-based screening. All pregnant women should be screened for GBS.

Your newborn baby is at risk of GBS infection if, during your pregnancy:

You have a urine culture during your current pregnancy showing GBS
You have a vaginal and rectal swab culture during your current pregnancy showing GBS
You had a prior pregnancy during which you or your baby had GBS

Therefore, it is important that your medical provider tests for this type of infection to avoid an otherwise preventable birth injury. If GBS is diagnosed and not treated during pregnancy, it is medical negligence.

If you or a loved one feel you are the victim of a medical mistake contact The Yost Legal Group today at 1-800-YOST-LAW (800-403-7259). When you call, you will speak with an experienced Baltimore Medical Malpractice attorney absolutely FREE.

We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you will never pay an attorney’s fee up front, and you owe us nothing unless we win your case.

Kernicterus

Posted on July 25, 2017July 25, 2024 by Tom Yost

Despite advances in neonatal care, preventable injuries to newborns are still prevalent in the United States. Jaundice, a common medical condition in infants, is characterized by yellow tinting of a newborn’s skin and the whites of the eyes (conjunctiva). This yellowing is a sign that there is too much bilirubin (a substance formed by the breakdown of red blood cells) in the baby’s blood. Although most jaundice resolves without causing any harm, it is important that bilirubin levels are carefully monitored in all babies with jaundice because bilirubin is a toxic substance that can rise to dangerous levels in infants.

If severe jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia) is not treated, it can lead to serious lifelong problems such as kernicterus. Kernicterus is a type of permanent brain damage that occurs in a newborn when bilirubin builds up to very high levels and spreads to the baby’s brain, where it infiltrates brain tissue and causes damaging swelling of the brain (encephalopathy). Kernicterus, also called acute bilirubin encephalopathy, causes permanent brain damage that could have otherwise been prevented.

Symptoms of kernicterus can include:

Extreme sleepiness and lethargy (the baby may have difficulty waking up or can’t be kept awake, does not respond to touching or does not startle from sudden movements).
A very abnormal, high-pitched cry.
Poor muscle tone – the baby may seem “floppy” and weak.
A fever that occurs along with any of these other symptoms.

Approximately 60% of term, and 80% of pre-term, babies develop jaundice in the first week of life and about 10% of breastfed babies are still jaundiced at 1 month of age. Therefore, it is imperative that jaundice is properly recognized, monitored (a simple blood test identifies the baby’s bilirubin level) and treated as soon as possible (typically with phototherapy and, if necessary, blood transfusions), before it develops into kernicterus. If the symptoms of hyperbilirubinemia or kernicterus are not recognized and treated by medical staff, it is medical negligence.

Our experienced attorneys fight for individuals who have been negatively impacted by the negligence of others. If you would like to discuss your child’s potential claim arising from a brain injury, the attorneys at Yost Legal Group are experienced professionals ready to investigate your claim with compassion and determination. For a free consultation, please call us at 1-800-YOSTLAW.

Injury During Cardiac Catheterization

Posted on July 19, 2017May 30, 2025 by Tom Yost

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of death globally. Because more people die annually from heart disease than from any other cause, it is important to take preventative measures to examine how well your heart is working. Diagnostic procedures and medical tests are commonly performed by medical professionals to monitor the heart and keep people from suffering fatal heart attacks.

Cardiac catheterization, a procedure used to diagnose and treat cardiovascular conditions, involves inserting a flexible wire into an artery or vein in your neck or groin, threading this wire through your blood vessels to your heart and, finally, guiding a long, thin tube, called a catheter, over the wire and into coronary arteries, veins or even a chamber of the heart.

Complications of this procedure can include:

Creation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel (thrombus), triggering a stroke, heart attack, or other serious problems.
Dislodgment of atherosclerotic plaque (plaque rupture) from the interior wall of a blood vessel, triggering a stroke, heart attack, or other serious problems in patients with atherosclerosis (a condition commonly known as “hardening of the arteries”)
Damage to blood vessels (the wire or catheter may cut, scrape or puncture a blood vessel as they are threaded to the heart), causing severe bleeding (hemorrhage or hematoma).
Accidental placement of the catheter into the wrong artery, vessel, heart chamber or, rarely, into a lobe of the lung.

The use of ultrasound imaging to guide catheter placement and the degree of technical experience greatly influence the incidence of vascular complications. If ultrasound imaging is not used to provide visual guidance during the procedure, or if the doctor performing the catheterization is careless or inexperienced, risks of complication skyrocket. These complications may all fall into the category of medical malpractice. An injury during cardiac catheterization can cause permanent damage or even result in death.