Child Awarded £15,000.00 in Damages For Foreign Body Left In Foot

Medical Negligence Solicitor, Chloe Sullivan, secures £15,000.00 in compensation for a child who was left with a foreign body in her left foot which had been incompletely removed during two operations, causing a third operation to be required.

What Happened

Our Client attended her local Hospital after experiencing concerns that the debris of a splinter remained in her foot and an x-ray was therefore carried out. No debris was detected through the x-ray nor surgical exploration of the wound.

Continuous suffering caused our Client to return back to hospital. An ultrasound scan was performed which confirmed the presence of a splinter at a depth of 1 cm, yet our Client was discharged. One month later she again returned to hospital but was once more discharged with only instructions to return for an appointment at a later date.

Seven months after the initial presentation to A&E, an ultrasound scan was performed which detected two foreign body fragments, 9mm and 4mm in size. A second operation was performed on our Client’s foot to remove the debris, however, only one of the particles was found and extracted. Our Client continued to experience discomfort within the foot and difficulties with walking. As her foot condition continued to deteriorate further, she was required to undergo an MRI scan. The scan detected that there was still some debris lodged within the foot. Our Client therefore underwent a third operation to remove the additional particles of the debris which remained within the foot.

As a result of the negligence our Client sustained a very long, painful and complicated recovery. In total it took 20 months before all of the splinters were finally removed.

How Chloe Helped

Chloe was able to successfully argue that the Defendant Trust failed to properly treat and investigate an injury to our Client’s left foot which caused her to suffer unnecessarily and to experience a significantly prolonged recovery time.

It was established by Chloe that the treating Doctor should have ensured an ultrasound scan was carried out rather than an x-ray, before and during the initial operation to try and identify the foreign bodies from the outset. Furthermore, Chloe raised the issue that had an ultrasound been carried out prior to the operation, on the balance of probabilities, this would have found both foreign bodies and led to the resolution of the symptoms very rapidly.

As a result of this, Chloe successfully argued that there was a delay in the removal of the foreign body which caused our Client to undergo multiple operations and a series of investigations which would have not been required if the breach of duty had not occurred.

The Result

A letter of Claim was lodged with the Defendant Hospital alleging Breach of Duty and Liability and Causation was soon admitted. The Defendant Hospital distinctively addressed that there was a breach of duty in their failure to perform an ultrasound prior to the initial operation which caused our Client to undergo numerous and needless operations and to experience unnecessary pain and suffering which elongated her recovery. It was accepted that if this breach of duty had not occurred our Client would have made a full recovery within 6 weeks following her injury, i.e. the middle of September 2012, rather than being discharged in January 2014. As a result of this, Chloe managed to secure £15,000.00 in compensation for our Client’s pain and suffering.