Joe Osborne & Francis questions focusing on Birth related Brain Injuries, and advocating for Florida families (Part 1)
Rene Perras | 00:05
Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Coffee with Q. I’m Rene Perras, your host and legal news reporter. Coffee with Q is dedicated to helping consumers find justice. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Joe Osborne, a seasoned and accomplished medical malpractice and trial lawyer with extensive experience in advocating for patients’ rights.
Today’s show will be focused on potential complications arising from birth-related brain injuries that women and their families are facing in Florida medical facilities. Joe Osborne, our guest, has specialized in this area for nearly 30 years. Welcome, Joe, and thank you for joining us today.
Joe Osborne | 00:46
Thank you, Rene. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Rene Perras | 00:49
I didn’t realize that birth-related brain injuries and complications could be such an issue today for Florida families. What are some of the common causes of brain injuries in birth-related cases?
Joe Osborne | 01:01
The main cause and the main issue that we see that results in very poor outcomes for children during the birthing process. Is hypoxia or lack of oxygen to the brain during the course of vaginal deliveries, and that is probably and is the number one issue that medical providers and families are faced with when something like this happens. Which ultimately have got handled correctly can lead to catastrophic outcomes.
And some of the underlying causes of that hypoxia you know, occurs during the birthing process. And obviously it’s variable, but, For instance, in some of the cases that we have handled, we have seen, for instance, a lack of progression of labor during a vaginal delivery. So, you know, where a labor course is expected to take maybe six or eight hours with induction of Pitocin or other induction agents, that the process just seems to take longer. And whether it’s lack of complete effacement, or cervix isn’t responding, or just labor is taking much longer than anticipated, babies can get in trouble during the course of the process.
Breach presentation, where children actually get stuck in the birth canal because of the position of the baby that goes unrecognized can cause issues with hypoxia and lack of oxygen. And then especially in first-time moms who have not had the benefit of having gone through a complete vaginal delivery. Typically, labor can be prolonged in first-time mothers. And even with induction agents, it can be a slow and deliberate process. And requires a very close and tight medical monitoring both of the baby’s fetal heart rate, oxygen status, and of course, of the mother.
And then there are emergencies that occur during the course of the delivery process. That can be a separation of the placenta from the child or which again can interfere with the ability of the baby to be oxygenated correctly, or a loss of fetal heartbeat during the course of the delivery process, which, of course, is potentially a medical emergency.
Rene Perras | 03:23
Everything is so brand new when you’re a first-time parent and you’re in that birthing room. Thank God all of my children were born without any issues. How can parents recognize early signs of brain injuries in their newborns?
Joe Osborne | 03:41
Well, it all starts with a recognition of what’s called developmental delays. Typically, when you see brain injuries that result due to hypoxia during the burden process. Some of it can be very clear and catastrophic and evident that the child is very acidotic when they’re born. They have very significant physical characteristics indicative of a recent brain injury. Is a very prolonged situation where there is a lack of oxygen to the brain and those can be extremely apparent.
Other times it may take some time to go by and the brain injury may not be as readily apparent as it is in some other circumstances. And in those situations, you really kind of focus on the child and whether or not they develop what we call developmental delays, meaning that over time, whether they’re cognitive delays, physical and motor skill delays, speech issues, emotional control issues. Those are things that over time, and as parents are raising their child, they start to see issues, and there’s no real clear explanation. And when we go back and look at some of the medical records and figure out what happened, we’re able to make ties to some of these developmental delays and typically substandard oxygen levels during the course of the labor and delivery process.
Rene Perras | 05:05
When it comes to developmental delays, how long are we talking about, generally speaking?
Joe Osborne | 05:12
Well, in Florida, we have a very friendly statute which says that parents have up to and it really kind of varies, but at a minimum up to seven years to bring a claim if there’s a developmental delay that occurs. So, you know, you may not see anything for three, four or five years, you may think the time has passed, but we have a protection statute for parents who don’t see delays for a while. Sometimes kids are, you know, obviously as they’re learning and growing and maturing, you don’t necessarily see things right away, but our statute provides protection for parents in these situations where if there is a delay, and it can be tied back to the birthing process, they can still bring a case.
Rene Perras | 05:56
You’ve talked about the statutes. What other legal rights do families have when dealing with brain injuries caused by medical error or negligence?
Joe Osborne | 06:05
Well, they have plenty of rights and that’s why, you know, lawyers like myself, who specialize in these cases become critical to the process. In terms of the evaluation of whether or not there has been a birth injury related, whether it’s a birth injury related case and can it be tied to the nurses and doctors and hospitals that were involved in the process? We have handled over the course of, like you said, three decades, we have handled a number of these cases.
They are very complex. In terms of both in medical negligence, causation and damages issues. We deal with super high level issues involving fetal monitor stripe, placental pathology, arterial blood gases, and obviously work with very high level experts in order to tie some of this together. So families have legal rights in Florida. There are claims that can and should be pursued. But they are complex, and it’s extremely important to have someone experienced on your side to evaluate your case for you.
Rene Perras | 07:08
Have the number of birth injuries been on the decline as medicine has improved over the years?
Joe Osborne | 07:15
It’s really hard to say. I think if you look at the statistics, you know, what happens is where hospitals and nurses get in trouble is a mom comes in, she wants to have a vaginal delivery. And something goes wrong during the course of the vaginal delivery, like some of the things we’ve been talking about. Lack of progression, loss of fetal heart rate, potentially an emergency, something with the placenta.
And then there is kind of this failure to timely convert from a vaginal delivery to a C-section. There’s a C-section, obviously, that gets the baby out very quickly. And I don’t know that there’s been any change in the numbers of C-sections versus vaginal deliveries over time. But I think there has got to be on at least the part of the doctors and the hospitals, a quicker decision or quicker decisions, I should say, to convert.
Converting from vaginal deliveries to cesarean sections can save a child’s life. It can prevent the ultimate outcome here, which is what we’re talking about, which is a birth-related injury. They always say decision to incision can be accomplished within 10 to 15 minutes of the hospital. It’s being attentive and having that quick trigger finger to say if something is going wrong. You’re looking at the fetal monitor stripe. There are oxygenation issues with the child. Medications and things are being delivered to try and improve the oxygenation status of the child. Repositioning the mother. They are all conservative things that can be done to try and increase or improve the clinical scenario here. But ultimately, it comes down to that decision making. And it’s the decision making that becomes important from a timely perspective. And I really should say a timing perspective to make sure that if there is a problem, it’s no different than your little kid drowning in the pool.
You know, how quickly are you going to jump in and save them? And if you wait too long, that can lead to catastrophic results. If you do it in a timely manner, disasters avoid it.
So it’s making sure that the doctors and nurses are educated. And they have that quick trigger finger that if there’s a problem, you jump in the pool, you get the kid out of there, you do a cesarean section, and typically all is well if that’s done the right way.
Rene Perras | 09:42
I like how you phrased that, decision to incision. The downside is horrific if it’s not done quickly. Is there a particular family that comes to mind that you helped with your experience?
Joe Osborne | 10:00
Yes. One of the very first brain damage baby cases I handled, this had to be 15, 20 years ago, actually involved a twin delivery where the first baby came out totally fine. And the second child, like we’re talking about, got in trouble. And there was a very slow reaction to converting the delivery of the second child to a cesarean section. And the fetal monitor stripe, the nurses, the doctors, everybody just dropped the ball and kind of got focused on the delivery of the first child.
Not going to say they forgot about the second child, but clearly the priority in terms of identifying the recognition of what was going on with the second child was not up to standard. And we ultimately ended up with a second child who was delivered that was catastrophically brain injured. And it was such a sad situation for the parents because they had these two beautiful children that looked exactly like that, you know, and this is your typical scenario where all the prenatal visits, everything working up to the actual delivery process with mom had all gone wonderful.
So, you know, there was no, nothing bad was expected. And ultimately, this poor family was left with one beautiful child and the unfortunate son who ended up being second. And ended up being catastrophically brain injured, needed 24 hour care. And ultimately we had to do all the things we do in these cases and we were able to get a settlement for them. And take care of that child for the rest of his life. But it was a super sad outcome and really sad for both him and the family.
Rene Perras | 11:44
Was the outcome evident immediately in this particular case or did it take a while to figure out that there been an …
Joe Osborne | 11:51
He almost died in the hospital. When e-he was catastrophically brain injured. In the hospital, he went right into pediatric ICU, had a massive seizure. He couldn’t breathe on his own. What they typically do will do an MRI of the brain within a certain timeframe, which will show all the areas of potential injury to the brain from hypoxia. The arterial blood gas showed that he was severely acidotic, which meant that he was not getting good proper oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange, and he was catastrophically injured from the moment he was born.
Rene Perras | 12:26
Find out more about Joe Osborne. Florida trial lawyer with Osborne and Francis. You can visit www.realtoughlawyers.com or you can call Joe directly at 561-301-3292. Thank you, Joe, for coming on the show. And your experience with us today is always stellar. It was certainly helpful for me and I’m sure for your audience as well.
Joe Osborne | 12:51
Thank you, Rene.
Joe Osborne & Francis questions focusing on Birth related Brain Injuries, and advocating for Florida families (Part 2)
Rene Perras | 00:04
Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Coffee with Q. I’m Rene Perras, your host and legal news reporter. Coffee with Q is dedicated to helping consumers find justice. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Joe Osborne, a seasoned and accomplished medical malpractice trial lawyer with extensive experience in advocating for patients’ rights.
Today’s show will be focused on potential complications arising from birth-related brain injuries that women and their families are facing in Florida medical facilities. Joe Osborne, our guest, has specialized in this area for nearly 30 years. Welcome, Joe, and thank you for joining us today.
Joe Osborne | 00:44
Thank you for having me.
Rene Perras | 00:46
You know, we’re going to talk about birth-related brain injuries. What is your approach when representing Floridians in these complex cases?
Joe Osborne | 00:56
That’s a great question, especially in Florida. When a family comes to me with a potential birth injury case, one of the first things we have to look at is something called NICA. I think it stands for the Neurological Injury Compensation Act in the state of Florida, which was set up by the legislature in.
Back in the 80s and 90s, in a way to limit and inhibit families from bringing claims when their children are hurt during the birthing process. NICA is very complicated. It’s convoluted. And if NICA takes jurisdiction over the case, it can literally prevent you from bringing a claim. And one of the things that we do and that we’ve done in the past in terms of helping families get around NICA is we attack it and we take the position that it does not apply in the case and we have several I should say defenses or attacks to the program that we can make for the family that at times work.
So for instance, The providers who are involved in the delivery typically have to be participants in NICA, and we may be able to show that they were not fully active participants in the program that the state is holding, therefore it doesn’t apply. That sufficient notice was not given by the providers, even if they are participants, to the families such that the notice failed and that NICA should apply. We can attack the program based upon what happened to the child in terms of the outcome and using experts attack the requirement the injury occurred during the labor and delivery and over-suscitation process and we have medical arguments we can make around that to try and destroy the jurisdiction of NICA.
What happens is if NICA accepts the program, I’m sorry, if NICA accepts the case and says you can’t file a case because this is a NICA claim, the parents are limited to $100,000 recovery per parent. And the benefits that are paid to the child are basically a secondary payer option. They just pay, they pay for health care that anybody else doesn’t cover.
So if Medicaid or private insurance companies already paying for it, the state gets to keep the money in their coffers. It’s really kind of. It’s really a program that has real no benefit for families, and it’s really designed to kind of limit lawsuits but as a Florida potential birth injury case, one of the first things we have to look at is NICA. And you really need an experienced lawyer to make sure that the navigation of it is done correctly from the beginning, because we have handled it from all aspects from full NICA hearings to trials to beating it to losing in it. But it’s something that has to be done in these kinds of cases.
Rene Perras | 03:50
Sounds very unfair for Florida families.
Joe Osborne | 03:54
Yes, it certainly is.
Rene Perras | 03:56
What challenges do families face other than NICA typically face when pursuing a brain injury lawsuit.
Joe Osborne | 04:03
Obviously, you know, just kind of flowing from our last answer, Nike is certainly number one, but number two, I think. It’s really, it really is a causation issue. It’s really, there are so many things, obviously, that can go wrong at times. During either the course of a pregnancy or during the course of the birthing process but families are just so many times faced with questions about what happened? How did this occur?
And a lot of times, between the doctors and nurses that are caring for the mom and the child, there just are so many more questions than answers. It’s such a complicated and complex thing. Meaning you would think the birth of a human being going back to the beginning of time, you know, is something that Maybe over time it’s become more understandable, but in a hospital setting, especially for the average person, between the machines you’re hooked up to, the fetal monitor stripe, the various doctors that see you, the various nurses that are involved. You know, when something bad happens, it’s really hard to kind of get straight answers or figure out what happened.
And I think that’s really the biggest challenge to know, hey, did something go wrong? Was this just a bad outcome? Was this just bad luck? Did somebody do something that or failed to do something that would have prevented this. And I think me and my team and the experts that I’ve worked with in these cases, a lot of times, We really get to the bottom of it and can give people answers. And the answers are sometimes they may, you know, we may provide answers and say there’s no case and this is what happened. And sometimes we can say, look, there’s a real problem here and it forms the basis of a lawsuit and we can help you out. But I think one of the great things we do in terms of this is at least get people answers and. And a lot of times answers lead to real recoveries.
Rene Perras | 05:52
Well, it sounds like if there is an issue or some kind of bad outcome, that a family should find out, consult an attorney, and find out was it just a bad outcome or was there actually some kind of error that occurred. I think that makes sense. Can you explain how brain injuries can affect a child’s long-term development?
Joe Osborne | 06:15
Sure. Well, there’s both short-term and long-term development, depending upon the extent of the hypoxia. Hypoxia means lack of oxygen to the brain or insufficient oxygen to the brain. And those require or, you know, ultimately can lead to very devastating consequences for a young child. And they can be across the board. They can be physical. It can be mental. It can be cognitive. It could lead to ultimately some speech issues and brain injuries, while children are kind of resilient, and they do have an opportunity to recover from some of these insults, depending upon its severity, Ultimately, the outcomes can be devastating.
It’s not we’ve seen in cases, children require 24/7 care, they will never go to normal schools, they will never have normal lives. They probably have short life expectancies based upon the injuries that are suffered. And then others, other injuries we have seen that are more subtle that not till, you know, maybe three, four or five years old. We start to see significant behavior and emotional problems and control. We start to see, you know, hey, how come my child’s three or four and they’re not walking yet? How come my child is five years old and can’t, you know, that can’t say ABC and has, you can barely speak. And so sometimes they’re more subtle than that, you know, in terms of comparing them to people or kids who are catastrophically injured. At the time and it’s readily available based upon the medical testing once the child is born. But these are all things that need to be watched and monitored and certainly evaluated by parents so that we can potentially ultimately connect it back to something that may have occurred during the burden process.
Rene Perras | 08:07
And with the statutes of limitations, you have to identify that within seven years?
Joe Osborne | 08:13
Seven years, yes.
Rene Perras | 08:14
Has the hospital or medical protocol improved for women when delivering babies?
Joe Osborne | 08:21
That’s a really difficult question, I think, to look at in general. I think you’re going to have various, you know, certain hospitals that probably haven’t proved. We talk about decision to incision from, you know, recognizing problems during the course of labor and delivery and converting to cesarean sections. I think OBGYNs are more readily willing to say, let’s just do a cesarean section to begin with. Meaning that, you know, certain women may want to have, I like to try to, you know, deliver my child naturally. And I think upfront, you know, given maybe certain situations or clinical scenarios that exist in the pre-delivery phase or pre-labor phase.
C-sections are being offered more readily available as a first line of treatment. And I think that Look, C-sections come with risk. It’s surgery. But at the end of the day, your child, ultimately, the risk of a child developing hypoxia or brain injury during a C-section is basically zero. And ultimately, it’s probably the safest way for the child. Thousands and thousands, millions and millions of children get delivered vaginally without any issues. That’s not… It’s not a mistake or an error to recommend or allow that to happen for a woman to deliver her baby. But if it’s going to be a vaginal delivery, you have to have a super heightened sense of awareness that if there’s a problem, converting to a cesarean section and doing that quickly in a hospital, something that needs to be done.
The hospital has all the facilities. C-section rooms are ready. Everything is set up to happen quickly if a problem occurs. It just needs to be recognized and occur if something does go wrong.
Rene Perras | 10:16
There are many visits that families have with their doctors before delivering their babies. I’m not sure if this happens or not, but do they have discussions of complications and what the doctor is planning to do if they experience certain things?
Joe Osborne | 10:34
Absolutely. Every OBGYN makes a mom sign the consent for a cesarean section before the delivery is planned. Or before the expected due date. And those issues are discussed.
So it’s something that going into the process of typically, all scenarios are discussed and planned for. It’s just reacting accordingly. Sometimes it becomes about reacting to the information and what’s happening on a moment’s notice, as opposed to not necessarily doing the right thing in a timely fashion. Again, this all comes down to minutes. Minutes can matter.
Again, it’s like you’re a little one drowning in the pool. Minutes matter. Once you cut off oxygen to the brain, or there’s insufficient oxygen to the brain, you know, within two or three minutes, the wrong decision or being distracted is, can, you know, can prove, you know, devastating. So it’s just making sure those kinds of things don’t happen.
Rene Perras | 11:39
That makes so much sense. Maybe there’s one particular case of a family in Florida that you helped. That had these types of issues occurring.
Joe Osborne | 11:50
Yeah, we actually had a recent case where we represented this poor mom. It was her first child. It’s a daughter. And during the course of the birthing process, a nurse inserted a medical instrument into the vagina to check on something. And unfortunately, when she inserted it, she did it incorrectly. Which caused the placental or the placenta. To disrupt and cause placental bleeding. Which came out the vaginal canal. And obviously when that occurs, that means enough blood and oxygen is not getting to the baby. So it was a medical emergency.
Unfortunately, that nurse, instead of calling a code right away and calling for help, tried to cover it up. Because she didn’t want it. Didn’t want to get in trouble and clearly had caused this issue. And there was a significant delay and recognizing what happened. And then ultimately getting the child out. Well, because of all that, the child ended up catastrophically brain injured. And we ended up representing that family in that case.
Rene Perras | 12:59
You must meet a lot of families with these type of sad situations. I commend you for doing what you do. Find out more about Joe Osborne, Florida trial lawyer with Osborne and Francis. You can visit www.realtoughlawyers.com or you can call Joe directly at 561-301-3292 Thank you, Joe, for coming on the show and your experience with us today is always amazing. It was certainly helpful for me and I’m sure for our audience as well.
Joe Osborne | 13:33
Thank you.
Joe Osborne & Francis questions focusing on Birth related Brain Injuries, and advocating for Florida families (Part 3) Transcript
Rene Perras | 00:05
Hello and welcome everyone to another episode with Coffee with Q. I’m Rene Perras, your host and legal news reporter. Coffee with Q is dedicated to helping consumers find justice. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Joe Osborne, a seasoned and accomplished medical malpractice trial lawyer with extensive experience in advocating for patients’ rights.
Today’s show will be focused on the potential complications arising from birth-related brain injuries that women and their families are facing in Florida medical facilities. Joe Osborne, our guest, has specialized in this area of law for nearly 30 years. I’d like to welcome Joe. Thank you for joining us today.
Joe Osborne | 00:46
Thank you for having me.
Rene Perras | 00:47
So the theme that we’re going to be on today is, you know, birth-related brain injuries that Floridians, some Floridians may be, you know, experiencing. What role do medical experts play in your legal cases?
Joe Osborne | 01:03
Well, in a birth injury case, experts are everything. And just to give you a sense, you know, I’ve been handling these cases for well over three decades. And, you know, we deal with experts in medical specialties involving OBGYN, nursing, maternal fetal medicine, a placental pathologist, pediatric neurologists, physical medicine and rehab. Life care planners, pediatric neuroradiologists, rehab specialists.
I mean, it is it goes on and on. In fact, there is no case. That I can think of, in from a medical malpractice perspective for which you need more experts in a case than this, especially when it comes to evaluating the negligence issues of how the care was provided or not provided. And then you have just so many causation issues to deal with in terms of what the characteristics of the placenta were, was the acidosis. What caused the underlying acidosis in terms of a lack of oxygenation? What other underlying characteristics may have been in the family history in terms of things maybe that were not hypoxia related that could have caused the outcome that was suffered by the child, and that could be the family history of the mother, the family history of the father. It’s a very complicated scenario for which and many times we may have 10 to 15 experts in the case. And of course, in Florida under 766, we need those experts, not just in a birth injury case, but any case. In order to give us an affidavit of a good faith basis of a claim, in order to get into the notice of intent and pre-suit period under 766 which is required in any medical malpractice case.
So these are very expensive, costly, cases, but you have to hire the right, you have to hire the right experts. We hire the best experts we can across the United States to help in these cases. And it’s important that you do that or you really have no chance of really proving the viability of your claim.
Rene Perras | 03:16
It’s the first time that I heard about 766. Is that a statute? Is that a law? What is 766?
Joe Osborne | 03:23
So Florida statute 766 is our pre-suit period requirement in the state of Florida. So for instance, if I get approached about a case. About a malpractice case, and I believe it’s a case, I cannot walk down to the courthouse and file your case. What I have to do is I have to get an affidavit, let’s say it’s a birth injury case, and we believe the OBGYN was negligent. I have to go hire an independent expert to review the medical records and give me an affidavit that says, based upon the materials that have been reviewed. That there is a good faith basis to bring a claim. I take that affidavit, I put together what’s called a notice of intent to initiate litigation, I attach those two things and I send them to the OBGYN who we are about to sue.
At which point, that OBGYN or whoever the defendant is. As 90 days to do exactly what I just did under 766. Review the medical records, hire their own experts. Do all those things and at the end of the 90 days can make a decision. You know? Do they believe we have a case? Do they want to try to resolve it? They can tell us to go pound sand. And 99.9% of the time, regardless of how good the case is, the medical providers say go pound sand. We don’t think it’s a case. That once the case is denied under 766. I can then walk down to the courthouse and file my lawsuit.
Rene Perras | 04:52
So nothing can happen unless everybody’s done their due diligence and done the 766 before?
Joe Osborne | 04:54
That’s right. Okay. It’s all of the pre-suit requirements. By law under the state of Florida, by statute, are required in the medical malpractice case.
Rene Perras | 05:06
How does Florida law support families seeking compensation for brain injuries?
Joe Osborne | 05:12
I think the one good thing that we have here, which not a lot of states do, is we have no caps on damages. So, for instance, there are many states, I’ve lost count, but there’s probably 25 to 30 states to where they have caps on pain and suffering, non-economic damages. Regardless of the injury and or claim, you can never recover more than $250,000 for non-economic damages.
Here, we don’t have that in Florida. Economic damages, things like future medical bills, loss of earnings, loss of potential, those are what they are. Those are the economic damages suffered by the injured person and those damages, assuming you win the case, can be paid and there isn’t no cap on them. But in Florida, we also have pain and suffering damages. You know, what does mom and dad and what has baby now going to experience for his or her life over the course of time and the pain and suffering of now having a catastrophically injured child.
Well, in some states, mom and dad could never recover more than 250 and neither could the child on the non-economic pain and suffering side. But in Florida, we have no capital in those damages. So a jury can award $10 million for future medical needs and $10 million for pain and suffering non-economic damages. And here in Florida, anyway, that award would be $20 million because we have no cap, as I stated.
Rene Perras | 06:41
Was there a point in Florida law that there were caps?
Joe Osborne | 06:46
Yes, we had the Florida Supreme Court overturned that approximately 10 years ago. So as we sit today, there is no cap on non-economic damages in the state of Florida.
Rene Perras | 07:00
Well, that sounds like that’s better for families here in Florida. How can families ensure they’re receiving proper medical care after a suspected brain injury?
Joe Osborne | 07:10
That’s a great question. And it all starts with the pediatric neurologist. One of the things that I think we’ve really learned in these cases is that, and this makes sense, with a brain injury, the neurologist really becomes the captain of the ship. And a pediatric neurologist is someone who specializes, obviously, in brain injuries and other types of brain dysfunction on the part of children and pediatric patients. And the one piece of advice I would give any family, regardless of the case, whether it was a case or not, if your child is having an underlying brain problem, either caused by hypoxia or otherwise. Make sure you have a great pediatric neurologist who can follow your child from a neurological standpoint, following the injury and overseeing the care that’s necessary from a recovery standpoint.
That can include physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. Neuropsychological testing, all the things that are needed in order to kind of make sure that the benefit of the therapies and treatment to treat these injuries is fully realized by the child. Children can make improvements, and it’s important that you have a good pediatric neurologist on board to make sure, as the captain of the ship of your child’s care and future, all of that is being addressed in the right way.
Rene Perras | 08:37
I hope I have never to go through something like this, but it must be heart-wrenching for parents. So what advice do you give parents when they’re navigating the emotional legal aspects of a brain injury case?
Joe Osborne | 08:52
I mean, it kind of dovetails what I was just saying is, but really focus on the care for your child. Make sure that the right specialists are in place. I had a case not too long ago where a child was catastrophically injured after a birth situation, and it was a situation where he developed significant hypoxia. There was not a conversion to a C-section in a timely manner and he developed a significant injury. There is now something called, it’s called a cooling procedure, where the child was taken over to a university-based hospital and was put within what’s called a cooling program, which is designed to shrink or really lower the body temperature of the child, which is designed to in theory, limit the progression of the underlying brain injury when the body temperature is taken down to, you know, real low certain levels.
And gosh, I got to tell you, you know, this, that was probably about man, I don’t know, within the last 10 years. And when I see videos and pictures of this child today, you would never know anything even went wrong, was ever wrong with him. He made an amazing recovery, goes to school. If he walked into the room, you would never know something like this happened to him. The parents did an amazing job of then taking him, you know, obviously he had gotten that cooling mechanism treatment and then got all the right therapies after that, which is just as important. And he made a remarkable recovery. And from the standpoint of, you know, advancing science and taking advantage of it really made an impact on this child and really saved the kid’s life.
So there may feel like a long fight and a struggle. Let us focus on kind of the legal side of it. Focus on getting your child as well as possible. And that typically requires a good pediatric neurologist, the right therapies, the right team, and let’s see what happens.
Rene Perras | 10:59
Was this a case that you took to trial or you settled, or was it just somebody you met that actually had issues but had a good outcome?
Joe Osborne | 11:09
No, it actually was, you know, it’s one of those stories where I sat down with the family and I said, look, if your child gets better, it’s not good for the case. But let’s pray that this happens, because obviously we will adapt. It was a case that we took and we fought because the care that was provided in the hospital was not great and ultimately led to the outcome. But good news for the family. Bad news for the case. But obviously, I was thrilled for them. He got, he really did improve a lot. And we were happy to just kind of, we settled the case. We didn’t settle it for anything near which we thought it was worth to begin with. But guess what? That was good news for everybody because the fact the kid had made a tremendous recovery was a miracle for the family. It was a miracle for him. We were happy at that point to just say, you know what? He made a great recovery and we’re thrilled all around and we just adapted in the case accordingly.
Rene Perras | 12:08
Well, that’s a nice way to end our show today. To find out more about Joe Osborne, Florida trial lawyer with Osborne and Francis, visit you can visit www.realtoughlawyers.com or you can call Joe directly at 561-301-3292. Thank you, Joe, for coming on the show. Like always, I always like hearing your experiences. It was certainly helpful for me today, and I’m sure our audience as well.
Joe Osborne | 12:37
Thank you, Rene. It was a pleasure to be here.