Medical Malpractice Tragedy Ends With $17.9 Million Settlement

A medical misdiagnosis caused a New York mother of three to become legally blind in one eye and a quadruple amputee. In September of 2008, Tabitha Mullings presented to the Brooklyn Hospital Center Emergency Room with complaints of kidney pain. The hospital diagnosed her with a kidney stone, prescribed some pain killers, and sent Ms. Mullings home. The next day, Ms. Mullings experienced agonizing pain and numbness. She called 911 two times, but the FDNY medics refused to take her to the hospital. As Ms. Mullings condition did not improve the following day, her fiancé rushed her to the hospital, but a sepsis infection had already spread through her entire body.

Ms. Mullings fell into a coma and gangrene spread to her extremities blocking circulation to her hands, feet, and eye. Two weeks later, Ms. Mullings woke up from her coma and into a nightmare. To her dismay she found herself blind in one eye and missing her hands and feet. Since the amputation, Ms. Mullings began taking anti-depressants.

Ms. Mullings talked about the grim reality of her condition:

“I dream about running and jumping rope double Dutch and then I wake up and it’s not like that . . . I may be the strongest woman on Earth; at the end of the day someone has to put a pin in my hair.”

NYdailynews.com

A settlement was reached with the Brooklyn Hospital Center and the city for $17.9 million – $9.4 million by the hospital and $8.5 million from the city. Nevertheless, the hospital maintains that its employees did not do anything wrong and settled for fear of a large jury verdict.