Brain Injury Lawyers

Long Island Attorneys Skilled Taking Legal Action in Guiding Patients Through Negligence Claims

The medical malpractice lawyers at Duffy & Duffy have handled many cases on Long Island and beyond when a medical professional and their medical negligence has caused brain injuries. These injuries include brain trauma, a lack of oxygen, cognitive impairment, or a brain injury caused from an insufficient amount of cerebral blood flow carrying blood to the brain. If you suspect that you or a loved one has suffered a brain injury because your health care provider did not use the appropriate care, we can meet with you to learn about the details of your situation. In the event that you have a claim, we can assert your right to compensation with the dedication you deserve.

Protect Your Rights Against a Health Care Provider After a Traumatic Brain Injury

To succeed in medical malpractice cases and claims, a patient must show that a doctor or other health care provider failed to offer treatment at an appropriate level. The professional standard of care, which is specific to this context, requires a physician to act with at least as much diligence as would be shown by a similarly trained and situated doctor. Since this standard is difficult for a jury to understand, expert witnesses are needed to help explain where the line should be drawn. They also will be useful in identifying the careless actions that caused the harm and guiding the jury in its analysis of whether those met the standard of care for that specific situation.

Once the patient has shown that the defendant doctor has breached the duty of care, a medical malpractice claim requires drawing a direct causal link from that breach to the injuries. A case will not succeed if the plaintiff would have been in the same position had the doctor not failed to meet the appropriate standard. However, if the patient does establish the causation element and identifies damages that resulted from the breach, he or she may be eligible to receive a wide range of compensation. This can include medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, scarring and disfigurement, and any other losses that stemmed from the doctor’s negligence.

What is a Traumatic Brain Injury?

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when brain tissue is damaged by a sudden traumatic event, such as hitting an object. The resulting symptoms can range from mild to severe. Mild TBI can result in a brief loss of consciousness, headaches, confusion, dizziness, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, a bad taste in the mouth, a change in behavior or mood, fatigue, lethargy, altered sleep, or memory troubles. Severe TBI may involve the same symptoms, but it can also entail others that are more dramatic.

Brain cells require oxygen to function and may start to die if they cannot receive it. Hypoxic-anoxic injuries (HAI) happen when there is a substantial (hypoxic) or total (anoxic) lack of oxygen supplied to the brain. When caused by a professional health care provider, HAI can be the result of anesthesia errors, delaying proper intubation, delay in performing a C-section of a baby whose oxygen supply has been impaired, or poor nursing that results in a delay in realizing and fixing oxygen deprivation.

Ischemic and hypoxic-ischemic injuries (HII) happen when there is not enough cerebral blood flow to carry blood to the brain. These situations are often the result of malpractice during childbirth, such as an interruption of blood or oxygen to the placenta. However, adults may experience these injuries as the result of a misdiagnosed heart attack or stroke. An injury may be localized, as it is in ischemic strokes, or generalized, as it is in a circulatory collapse secondary to cardiac arrhythmias or cardiac arrest. Certain areas of the brain are particularly sensitive to a lack of oxygen.

Contact a Malpractice Lawyer in Long Island to Protect Your Rights

The medical negligence attorneys at Duffy & Duffy have devoted their careers to helping individuals on Long Island and beyond who have suffered hypoxia, traumatic brain injury or damage, and other serious injuries due to professional negligence. It can be difficult as a patient or family of a patient to know whether or not certain injuries are the natural result of a medical condition or the product of a mistake by a healthcare professional. Our attorneys understand the healthcare profession and consult with knowledgeable physician and nurse experts on our clients’ cases. Contact us by calling (516) 394-4200 or using our online form. Our clients come from throughout New York, including the Bronx and Queens as well as Nassau, Suffolk, and Kings Counties.

Brain injury attorneys at Duffy & Duffy understand that medical mistakes and negligence can occur in a variety of circumstances and lead to grave injuries. If you have been injured due to a medical professional’s negligence contact our medical malpractice law firm today for a case review. Common cases seen by our brain injury attorneys include:

Cerebral palsy

Labor and delivery is known to be an unpredictable and difficult process, hence the physician in charge of delivering the baby needs to monitor the mother and unborn child and check for any signs of fetal distress. Failure to notice important problems, such as the umbilical cord’s pressure on the baby’s neck, may lead to a lack of oxygen to the brain, which can cause Cerebral Palsy. Since there is presently no cure for Cerebral Palsy, victims and their families face lifelong suffering and expenses due to the doctor’s mistake. A brain injury attorney in our firm, who specializes in Cerebral Palsy cases, will be happy to discuss your child’s case with you, and advise you about the possibility of recovery and damages that can result from it.

Cerebral Hypoxia

Another example of birth injury is cerebral hypoxia, which may also occur due to obstetrician’s failure to monitor the fetus during birth. Decreased heart rate, improper use of forceps and umbilical cord pressure are all things that should alert the doctor to act quickly in response to distress. Failure to perform a timely C-section, to restore the oxygen flow to the brain, may lead to significant brain damage caused by hypoxia. Our brain injury attorneys working with medical experts will review all the records surrounding your child’s birth and advise you as to whether the case may be meritorious in court.

Failure to diagnose a disease

Our brain injury attorneys also represent patients who were injured as the result of physician’s or emergency room staff’s failure to diagnose a condition, leading to brain injury. Examples of such cases can be a failure to diagnose meningitis, especially in children where an infection, if not caught in time, can lead to hydrocephalus, as well as significant pressure on the brain causing severe injury. If the child has symptoms consistent with meningitis, such as fever, lethargy or significant weight loss, performing lumbar puncture, together with blood work, is essential to proper diagnosis and timely treatment. Failure to do so may cause the treating provider to be named a defendant in a brain injury lawsuit.

Brain Injury from Sports

Where the failure to diagnose stroke or meningitis may result in non-traumatic brain injury, approximately 250,000 concussions per year occur as the result of trauma to the brain sustained while playing sports. Statistics show that twenty percent of football players suffer some sort of head injury in a single season, and repeated concussions can be fatal. However, some coaches, trainers and team doctors simply dismiss player’s complaints as minor and insist that he continue to play. Failure to timely and properly address a concussion can lead to brain atrophy and other neurological deficits. Our brain injury attorneys understand that participating in contact sports can lead to players sustaining repeated head injuries and discuss any sports related case with experts, who will check records and see if there were symptoms of brain injury such as confusion or amnesia, which should have been caught and addressed.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Our brain injury attorneys also handle cases of non-traumatic brain injury, such as carbon monoxide poisoning, where the defendant is typically a landlord of a residential building who fails to properly maintain, inspect and repair faulty gas equipment, such as a heater. Tenant’s continuous exposure to carbon monoxide can result in lifelong brain damage, which cannot be cured. A brain injury lawyer representing a client who suffered as the result of the landlord’s negligence will demand all records of inspection and repair to help him prepare for the carbon monoxide poisoning lawsuit.

Automobile Accidents & Other Vehicular Accidents

Accidents resulting from negligent, careless and reckless operation of a vehicle remain the leading cause of traumatic brain injury cases in the United States. In cases of collision with a larger vehicle, such as a bus or a truck, or when the bicyclist is hit by a vehicle, head injuries are quite common. Failure to wear seat belts, protective head gear (such as helmets while riding a motorcycle) or being thrown through a windshield due to impact can all lead to serious brain damage. Our brain injury lawyers have represented victims of car accidents who suffered from mild to severe brain damage due to a vehicular accident and can attest that the pain and suffering is often long lasting. Call us today at (516) 394-4200 if you or your loved one has been hurt through a fault of another in a car collision.

Contact the Brain Injury Attorneys Today

Call us today at (516) 394-4200 to see how experienced brain injury lawyers can help you.