Mom awarded $8.5
million, Hospital botched son's birth
Matt Leingang, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
5/10/2002
"A jury has awarded $8.5
million to a woman who claimed Rochester General Hospital caused irreparable
damage to her baby by botching the delivery.
Angela Asproules of Rochester, 22, sued the
hospital in state Supreme Court, alleging that doctors and midwives
underestimated the size of her baby when they allowed her pregnancy to go beyond
the 42-week gestation period.
When the baby boy was born Oct, 1, 1997, the
hospital should have known that he was too big to fit through the birth canal,
but he was delivered that way anyway, the lawsuit claimed.
He got stuck in the birth canal for three minutes
and was deprived of oxygen.
As a result, the baby, Yakeim Donald, was born
with severe brain damage. Now 4, he has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He
cannot speak or walk.
" All the warning signs were there that this wasn''t
going to be a healthy delivery through the vagina," said the plaintiff’s
attorney, Allan Zelikovic, with the firm of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City.
Janine DeCook, a spokeswoman for Rochester General,
said the hospital was disappointed with the jury''s decision but declined
further comment. The hospital is considering an appeal.
The jury -- five women and one man -- reached its
verdict Tuesday, awarding much more than the $6.2 million requested by the
plaintiff.
Asproules was 16 and not married when she became
pregnant, Zelikovic said. She received prenatal care at a medical clinic
operated by the hospital, and her pregnancy proceeded smoothly up until her due
date of Sept. 14, 1997, he said,
Her pregnancy was allowed continue beyond 42
weeks -- which is acceptable as long as the placenta continues to function
properly -- but when Asproules finally went into labor, it progressed slowly,
Zelikovic said.
Evaluations conducted by Dr. Reinaldo Sanchez and
midwife Lowry Simpson -- who were working Oct. 1 -- should have indicated that
the fetus was too big to move through birth canal, Zelikovic said.
Asproules weighed just 100 pounds before her
pregnancy. When her baby was born, he weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces. Asproules
ended up dropping out of high school and currently lives with her mother. The
child''s father no longer lives with the family but remains in contact with his
son, Zelikovic said. "The child will probably have a normal life expectancy, bat
he''ll never be independent," Zelikovic said."
