A 28 year-old woman’s family who brought a lawsuit against a cardiologist and Northwestern Memorial Hospital has settled theIllinois medical malpractice and wrongful death claim for $4 million. Settlement was reached in this case with the assistance of a mediator and approved by a Cook County Circuit Court judge in Estate of Kassi Dallman v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Jeffrey Goldberger, MD, et al., No. 09 L 9506.
Kassi Dallman entered Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital to undergo a cardiac ablation that would allow her to stop taking anti-arrhythmia medications. Cardiac ablation is a procedure that is used to correct heart rhythm problems by using long flexible tubes, catheters, inserted through a vein in the body usually at the groin and threaded to the heart. The catheter is then used to correct the structural problems in the heart that causes the arrhythmia. The cardiac ablation procedure was done without incident.
Dallman was told by her doctor that this cardiac ablation procedure would stop her heart arrhythmia. However, few days after the cardiac procedure, Ms. Dallman returned to Northwestern Memorial Hostipal’s emergency department complaining of a fever, chest pain, and shortness of breath.
Dallman was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for follow-up treatment. However, her doctors were unable to determine the cause of her chest pain and released her for discharge a few days later. While waiting to be picked up from the hospital, Dallman collapsed and died of a massive pulmonary embolism.
In their Chicago medical malpractice lawsuit, the attorneys for the plaintiff claimed that the pulmonary embolism could have been avoided if Dallman had been placed on anticoagulants following the cardiac ablation procedure. The doctor chose not to do that, a decision which the plaintiff's experts contended led to her death.
Chicago's Kreisman Law Offices has been handling Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits and Cook County wrongful death cases for more than 35 years in and around Chicago and Cook County, including the areas of Lombard, Northfield, Cicero, and Chicago Heights.
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