Knocked out. A patient underwent jaw reconstruction surgery performed by an oral surgeon at a hospital. The procedure was performed using the hypotensive anesthesia technique, by which a patient's blood pressure is reduced to specific levels in order to minimize blood loss. The patient's emergence from anesthesia was delayed, and he subsequently underwent an MRI. This revealed extensive anoxic brain damage. The plaintiff had been a college student, but now he uses a wheel chair equipped with computer-assisted technology to communicate. He requires 24-hour care because of his condition.

The patient's father, on his son's behalf, sued the oral surgeon, the attending anesthesiologist, the hospital, and an anesthesiology group, alleging that defendants had failed to carefully monitor his son's blood pressure during the surgery and allowed his blood pressure to go below critical levels. The plaintiff claimed that this negligence led to oxygen deprivation, which went undetected during the surgery. Furthermore, the plaintiff charged that during the surgery, the oral surgeon and anesthesiologist failed to use an arterial line, which would have provided beat to beat readings of his son's blood pressure. The case was settled out of court for over $8 million.

Disastrous labor. A woman in labor was admitted to a hospital at midnight. Soon after admission, the fetus experienced irregular and deceased heartbeats. The woman's insured OB/GYN attended to the mother and then left her in the care of the nurses. Over the next several hours, the fetus continued in distress and was finally delivered nearly eight hours later. Immediately after birth, the infant required intensive resuscitation, and was left with serious and permanent neurological problems. The child now experiences seizures, requires a feeding and breathing tube, has minimal vision and is a spastic quadriplegic. The parents of the child filed a lawsuit against the hospital, its nurses and the insured OB/GYN alleging a failure to monitor, advise and perform a timely C-SEction in the face of fetal distress. In his defense, the physician said he did not deliver the baby earlier because the nurses did not alert him to the worsening condition. However, the nurses deny his charges, and the hospital report backs them up. The claim was settled out of court for approximately $5 million.