Unexpected Death: Why You Might Have A Viable Wrongful Death Lawsuit To File

Accidents happen and loved ones die from natural causes all of the time. If you have a loved one that was being treated for an illness that suddenly took a turn for the worse and died, you may have a viable wrongful death lawsuit on your hands. When your loved one had a favorable prognosis and died unexpectedly, how your loved one was treated by medical providers may have been the cause of their untimely death. If you believe that your loved one died because of medical neglect, it's time to sit down with a wrongful death attorney like those at Burke Schultz Harman & Jenkinson Attorneys at Law to see if you have a reasonable case.

What Wrongful Death Entails

When a person dies, it is expected that they received all reasonable medical attention possible at the time. In wrongful death cases, the person who died did not receive adequate medical attention. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to save a person, and this is not a wrongful death case. When the wrong treatment is provided, or no treatment is provided, and the person dies, this could mean entail medical negligence.

In an example of a clear cut case, a person receives the wrong medication for the condition being treated. This medication causes the person to suffer a heart attack and die. This person had no history of heart trouble, and the medication clearly caused the heart failure. 

A less clear wrongful death case would be if your loved one was in a serious car accident. They made it to the emergency room, and they received some treatment from medical providers. Reasonable testing was not done on your loved one, such as a CT on the brain when they were complaining of head pain. Your loved one dies because of an undiscovered head injury. Standard treatment may have been doing a CT scan, but the doctor decided to wait. If it can be proven that waiting for a CT scan was outside the normal treatment given the symptoms presented, the doctor may be found liable for the death of your loved one.

As you consider filing a wrongful death lawsuit, meeting with a personal injury attorney to discuss the details of your case is essential. If you have medical records, you should bring these to your initial consultation. Together you can discuss what happened to your loved one, what treatment they received, and how you want proceed if you have a viable wrongful death lawsuit to file.