Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
A man fractures his bone while at work, goes to a municipal hospital in the New York City
health care system, winds up having a cast and you'll be amazed to hear what the doctor
said when they took the cast off. Come join me as I share with you this great information.
Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney
practicing law here in the state of New York. The gentleman was injured on the job. He was
in a forklift accident. As he's driving the forklift by a brick building, his arm gets
caught and fractured. He goes to a local hospital which is a municipal hospital which is part
of a New York City Health and Hospital system. And there he's recognized and diagnosed with
having a massive fracture. They decide to cast him at that point, rather than opening
up and having surgery and putting the bones back together. And over the next few weeks,
the patient is told to come back for follow up and that's exactly what he does. And after
about 7 weeks the patient is going to have his cast taken off and he's all excited. Now
that the case is taken off, the orthopedist looks at it and says "Looks terrific." The
patient looks at his arm and this is what he sees: his arm is straight then all of a
sudden it looks like a roller coaster. It goes up, peaks, and then goes down again.
And the patient says to the doctor, I don't understand. Why is my arm like this? And the
doctor says to him, "Not a problem. Just do some physical therapy. Massage it a lot and
it will be fine." The patient says what are you talking about? I've got a roller coaster
for an arm here. This is not something that's going to go away with physical therapy. The
doctor again reassures him, "Just go for physical therapy. Do some massage and it will just
be fine." Well the patient doesn't think so and now he goes to a private orthopedist who
takes one look at him and says "Oh my God. What happened to you? Who did this?" The orthopedist
gets the original x-rays and tells the patient "Listen. You should have had surgery immediately
to fix the bone. There is no way this way going to heal correctly. And each time you
went back for a follow up and they took x-rays they should have seen immediately that the
bone was not healing in the correct position. Each one of those times they should have taken
you into surgery, fixed the bone and then you'd be on your way. But now in this late
point, after two months, now your bone is permanently healed in the incorrect position.
And the only way to fix this is to literally go back into surgery to re-break the bone
under anesthesia and then doing what's called an "open reduction internal fixation" which
means they have to cut open the arm. They attach it with steel plates and screws and
pins and then you have to go through the healing process all over again." So that's what the
doctor at the municipal hospital told this patient that with a little physical therapy
and a little massage everything will go back to normal. Absolutely amazing. So why do I
share this great information with you? I share it with you just to give you an insight and
an understanding into some of the cases I handle on a daily basis. You know, chances
are you're watching this because you yourself suffered some type of bone injury and now
you have questions or concerns about the care you received. Well if your matter happened
here in New York and you do have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the
phone and call me. I can answer your legal questions. This is something that I do every
single day and I welcome your call. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com.
Well that's it for today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks so
much for watching.