Elderly dementia patient falls and breaks hip at imaging center. $443K. Riverside County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  Plaintiff, an 87-year-old dementia patient, went to defendant’s outpatient imaging center for a routine CT scan of her brain. Plaintiff fell when she tried to get off the exam table before it was lowered, fracturing her upper femur (hip bone). Plaintiff was transported from the imaging facility by ambulance and thereafter underwent surgical repair with implantation of a rod and pin into her femur.

  After five days in the hospital plaintiff spent an additional 73 days in a post-acute care facility. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, plaintiff’s family was not permitted to visit her in the hospital nor for the first two weeks at the post-acute care facility.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  Plaintiff’s expert radiologist, as well as a CT tech with 33 years experience, both opined that due to plaintiff’s advanced age and presentation with dementia that Velcro safety straps, readily available on all CT tables, were required to have been placed across plaintiff’s torso during the exam to prevent her from getting off the table prior to the lowering of the table.

  The treating orthopedic surgeon who repaired plaintiff’s hip testified that the nature of plaintiff’s fracture was caused by a force equal to a fall from standing height – which was about equal to the height of the CT table when raised for a scan. Plaintiff’s bio-mechanical expert cited multiple studies that supported the treater’s opinion and refuted that the fracture could be caused from plaintiff being gently lowered to the floor.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  Defendant’s CT tech was the only witness to what occurred and claimed at deposition that the patient was struggling to get off the table and that she helped plaintiff off the table and slowly lowered her to the floor – never observing a fall.

  At trial the CT tech changed her story, claiming that she lowered the CT table, helped plaintiff stand up, and only after seeing plaintiff sway (seemingly dizzy), gently lowered her to the floor with the assistance of another employee. Defendant contended that plaintiff never fell, it was reasonable to lower plaintiff to the floor due to her dizziness, and the fracture likely occurred because she had osteoporosis and could occur from merely stepping off the table.

  Both stories provided by defendant’s CT tech were undermined by another of defendant’s employees, who testified that the CT tech initially reported that plaintiff had fallen.