Mistakes from a Beverly Hills Emergency Room Worker Can Cause Serious Personal Injuries, You Need a Lawyer Now
External Fixator Misuse Causes a Personal Injury When Being Treated for Broken Bones in an Emergency Room
If you have been to a Beverly Hills emergency room lately for a broken bone, you may have seen an external fixation tool used on your broken bones to set the fracture. The external fixation tool contains large solid pins and screws, wires that attach to the bones, rings and cables that fix the bone in place, and clickers to adjust the bone as it is set back properly into place. It is also referred to by medical staff as an “ex fix,” and it needs to be used by clinical professionals and emergency room professionals who know how to properly adhere it to your broken arms or legs. You may be sent home with an ex fix, and told how to adjust the tool after you are seen in an emergency room right after your accident that created the bone breakage. You may even be told that you have to continually adjust the ex fix to your bone once a day, or over several times a day, therefore it is critical that you pay attention to when they tell you about this procedure.
But starting at the beginning, after you injure your bones and are sent to an emergency room to get the bones set, you will met the ex fix tool for the first time. It is going to be up to the emergency room staff who greet you and triage you during your visit, to determine if you are going to get treated with an external fixator, or whether you go to a surgery. If your bone break is serious enough, you’ll be sent to an operating room immediately. This is where many different types of mistakes can be made by the emergency room staff, in relation to helping you to recover from a serious accident where you broke your bones. If the emergency room staff gets your medical assessment wrong, it can turn into a life or death situation. In the event that you are concerned that these mistakes will jeopardize your long-term recovery, you can call us to review your case at Walch Injury Lawyers toll free at 844.999.5342.
Emergency Room Staff Are Liable and Responsible for the Correct Placement of an External Fixation Tool
If you break a major bone and go to the emergency room, after your assessment you may be told that you do not need an emergency surgery to fix the bone. Although that may give you a sigh of relief, you need to think carefully on the next steps. If you are given an ex fix to set the bone, you may not be out of the woods yet. If your broken bones are set with an ex fix, it will work wonders in most cases to stabilize the bone and surrounding soft tissues. But the ex fix that is used on you needs to have been properly maintained too, before it is used for setting your bones.
Emergency Room Staff Need to Be on How to Use an Ex Fix Tool to Set a Fracture, to Prevent Complications Related to Your Healing
Your ex fix tool is going to be attached to your bone through your skin, to set your broken bones back into place. There is a risk if the hospital personnel applying the tool that it can be put on wrong, which will increase complications later related to your healing from your accident that created a broken bone in the first place. For example, the pins need to be inserted through your skin, and are a locus for pin infections. The pins can also cause tension on the surrounding skin, where there can also grow an infection over time. If the pins are improperly placed, there can be damage to the nerves, tissues or even arteries around the area of the pins, which can cause problems later on for your healing. If the pin is inserted into a muscle, the tendon will lack normal movement and it can cause a rupture, fibrosis or even compartment syndrome from movement of the muscles around an improperly placed pin. Additionally, pressure ulcers can also form where the skin is pinched because of pins, bolts or other apparatus from the ex fix, as it is improperly attached to your skin. If you find that you are given an ex fix by the workers at an emergency room, and you are now in worse condition based on this tool being improperly place on your broken bones, you can call us to review the situation with you. We can go over your concerns, and we know what to do when the emergency room staff makes you worse off, after a visit to the hospital emergency services after a serious accident that resulted in broken bones.
Serious Breaks in a Bone Can Lead to Life-Threatening Conditions
If you experience a serious accident that breaks major bones in your body, it can lead to a life-threatening situation quite easily. Your bones are surrounded by tissues and blood vessels, which can be disrupted in a serious bone breaking accident. When your bones are broken, the break affects the entire area surrounding the bone that is cracked. That can mean that your blood supply to your body is also interrupted, and as a result the bone tissue can die. If your bone tissue actually dies, it will break down and the joints will stop being able to support you. This can be found in the condition of osteonecrosis, which can include: avascular necrosis, aseptic necrosis and ischemic necrosis of the bones. Anyone has the risk to develop a complication to a bone break at any age, but the elderly are particularly vulnerable to this condition after bones break during a fall from any height (even from a bed or chair). We are here to answer any questions that you may have regarding your treatment in a Beverly Hills emergency room at a hospital. Just call us today at Walch Injury Lawyers toll free at 844.999.5342, right now, to review your claim.
References
Encinas-Ullán, C. A., Martínez-Diez, J. M., & Rodríguez-Merchán, E. C. (2020). The use of external fixation in the emergency department: applications, common errors, complications and their treatment. EFORT Open Reviews, 5(4), 204–214. https://doi.org/10.1302/2058-5241.5.190029