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Southern California Injury Law Blog

Medication Errors In California Nursing Homes: Orange County Injury Attorney Recommends Written Medical Directive

Date: 09/03/2010


Last week an Orange County jury awarded $3.1 million to a woman who suffered a medication overdose at a skilled nursing home that left her brain damaged. Barbara Lefforge, only 57 years old was sent to St. Edna’s center for rehabilitation after a tendon repair surgery. She had only been there 5 ½ hours when the medication error occurred, explained an Orange County injury attorney.

According to court records, after her surgery her doctor recommended that she stay at St. Edna’s skilled nursing facility until she recuperated. She was mistakenly given 50mg of morphine instead of 50mg of Demerol. Since this was such an excessive dose, Lefforge’s attorney argued that medical personnel should have questioned that dosage order. Moreover the staff pharmacist even warned that the dosage was too high, but Lefforge’s doctor had doubled it, so she was given that quantity of medication.

Lefforge was left unmonitored until the next morning when she was found barely breathing due to the medication error. She had suffered from a major overdose of morphine. After being taken to the hospital, it was established that she had suffered a brain injury from the excessive morphine dose.

St. Edna Rehabilitation Center is one of 25 California rehab facilities owned by Covenant Care. Since 2004, they have accepted more than $880 million in additional compensation from the state for increased wages and staffing. According to the non-profit group, “California Watch”, it found that many Covenant Care facilities actually reduced their staff and let nursing ratios go below state standards during this time.

Tragically this is not an isolated case. Nearly one in five dosing orders of all nursing homes and hospitals has medication errors. These odds are unacceptable. In many cases, these patients are there for short stays while rehabilitating, not lifelong residents. It is for this reason that every citizen should have an up-to-date medical directive.

Only about 20% of Americans have a medical directive document; however, explained an Orange County injury attorney, it is one of the most important documents a person can have. The Advanced Health Care Directive is the best way to make known your health care wishes if you are incapacitated and can’t communicate your wishes.

Unfortunately, just telling your wishes to your husband or wife does not automatically ensure that they will be honored. Here in California, the law gives you two options for your directive: you can either appoint another person who can make the decisions for you or you can make your desires known through writing your own advanced directive. Either way, it’s important to meet with a professional lawyer to discuss your legal options.

If you have a loved one in any type of nursing facility, it would be wise to double-check that their medical directive matches the instructions that the staff has. If you have any questions or concerns regarding a nursing home in California, visit www.nursinghomeguide.org/ for a complete listing by city or county of local elder facilities and their violations, staffing policies, and complaints.

James Ballidis is an Orange County injury attorney specializing in injury claims arising from medical malpractice and medication errors, subjects on which he has written extensively. To request a copy of one of his articles or to discuss your rights and options after an accident, feel free to call 866-981-5596.






Defective Spray Nozzles At Southland Gas Stations

Date: 09/03/2010


High prices at the pump, warns an Orange County injury lawyer, are not the only thing California residents should be concerned about at Southland gas stations: in the past few months, defective spray nozzles have caused several injuries throughout the state, including one serious enough to require hospitalization.

The state fire marshal is warning all California residents to the possible spray hazard of the VST made nozzle and has issued a directive to thousands of service station operators to remove the 30,000 “open hold” latches that are in question. These latches are convenient due to the fact that you can go wash your windows at the same time the latch allows the pump to run without you holding it. This will affect approximately one-third of all California service stations.

Just last month there were accidents here in Orange County as well, in both Huntington Beach and Santa Ana, according to an Orange County injury lawyer. In fact half of all the incidences have been in Southland. The accidents are under investigation and the latches are being removed as a safety precaution until the results of an inquiry into the defective spray nozzles.

The California state fire marshal cited that this is “a hazard to the public and welfare”. Besides the obvious safety issues of gasoline that is being spraying onto your face and eyes, there is a real fire danger as well. Most Service station owner, obviously concerned for the customer’s safety and possible liability issue, are removing the latches immediately.

Daniel Berlant from the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is setting up mandates for Service station owners to be complied with by Oct 15, 2010 They have the option to:
• Possibly revert back to employee pumping only
• Removing the convenience of paying at the pump, going inside to pay
• Remove all latches from the VST nozzles

One additional warning is to never put another object like a bottle or can to hold the nozzle in your tank. This could unfortunately cause the same problem.

Currently the deadline to remove all of the latches is required by October 15th. If you still encounter a gas station that has not removed the latch, an Orange County injury lawyer advises that you utilize these safety precautions to avoid an injury.

Since most accident are occurring once you have picked up the nozzle and then push your selection for type of fuel, experts are suggesting that you put the nozzle into the tank hole before you select the grade of gasoline. This will prevent most of the spray accidents. However, if the latch is still attached to the nozzle, there is still some danger of getting sprayed when you remove it. To be on the safe side for now, try to use only nozzle pumps with no latches attached.

After Oct. 15th, gas stations that have not complied with this order will be shut down.

James Ballidis is an Orange County injury lawyer specializing in injury claims arising from accidents resulting from defective products and manufacturer negligence. He has written numerous articles on subjects relevant to personal injury law. To request a copy of one of his books or articles, or to discuss a specific case, feel free to call 866-981-5596.






Brake Failure Suspected Cause Of Fatal Truck Accident

Date: 09/02/2010


A family of three was killed recently when a runaway truck smashed into their home in central California. The truck driver was driving along state highway 154 in Santa Barbara and while merging his truck onto State Street, his brakes suddenly failed. He then proceeded to hit several parked cars and go over an embankment and finally hit the occupied home that had a young family living there, explains a California injury lawyer.

As the California Highway Patrol crash investigation team tries to reconstruct this accident, they did comment that alcohol was not a factor but that brake failure is suspected. The driver admitted that that the brakes were not working correctly when he picked up his load in Santa Ynez. The driver attempted to use all brake resources available; both hand and foot brakes but nothing could stop this truck.

Although many truck accident fatalities are caused by driver fatigue, a recent Department of Transportation (DOT) report found that 29.4% of large truck crashes occur due to brake failure. Another common truck accident cause is tire blowout due to worn tires or trucks not loaded properly.

When brakes malfunction and the driver’s behavior causes serious personal injury or in this case, wrongful death, who do you blame? Should the driver have fixed the issue instead of proceeding with his schedule? Was there a mechanical problem? Had maintenance been overlooked due to budget cut-backs and busy schedules? Was the mandatory brake pre-brake inspection performed?

Hiring the right California injury lawyer for counsel is advisable when you are struggling with specific truck industry issues and laws.

The trucking industry is a powerful organization; generating revenues of $610 billion per year, a figure that is set to double by 2015. Commercial trucking is here to stay but that means more cars must share the nation’s roads with even more trucks. Currently, one in eight traffic fatalities involve a trucking collision.

California is second only to Texas—which has the highest rate—in the number of truck fatalities that occur in the state each year. Investigations reveal that the primary causes of most truck accidents are fatigue and lack of sleep. In fact another runaway truck crash occurred in Northern California earlier this month and killed an innocent man. The CHP is still investigating with The Department of Transportation, DOT. Currently, they are investigating around 20 similar cases.

Clearly this is a situation that is not going away and needs to be resolved before more innocent people are tragically killed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the surviving relatives of these truck fatalities.

James Ballidis is a California injury lawyer specializing in truck accidents. He has written numerous articles on trucking accidents. To request a copy of one of his articles or to discuss a specific case, feel free to call 866-981-5596.