Woman blames Brooklyn ER for failing to spot devastating infection BY JOHN MARZULLI DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Updated Thursday, November 20th 2008, 8:16 AM
Tabitha Mullings at Brooklyn Hospital Center and with her fiance, Kahseem Davis (below). She blames hospital for failing to diagnose infection that left her partially blind and without feet and hands.
She went to a Brooklyn emergency room suffering from what she thought was just a kidney stone, but a medical nightmare left her partly blind and a quadruple amputee. Tabitha Mullings claims doctors at Brooklyn Hospital Center failed to diagnose an infection that has literally eaten her alive.
"Sometimes I can't believe it's me laying here," the mother of three told the Daily News Wednesday from her bed in the very hospital she blames for her ravaged body. Wiping tears with a bandaged stump, Mullings struggled to explain how in a little more than a month she has gone from vibrant mom to a shell-shocked victim dependent on relatives to feed her. "At first I didn't want to live anymore, but I've got three kids and I'm their mother and their father," Mullings, 32, said. A spokesman for the hospital failed to respond to requests for comment. Mullings and her lawyers plan to hit the hospital with a medical malpractice suit today in Brooklyn Supreme Court. "I'm angry at the people in the emergency room," Mullings said. "I don't think they did their job." Her agonizing ordeal began Sept. 14, when she went to the Fort Greene emergency room in pain. Doctors diagnosed it as a kidney stone. Lawyer Sanford Rubenstein said Mullings was given painkillers and sent home. "They needed to admit her to the hospital, not send her home with pain medication," Rubenstein said. "She needed to be worked up much more thoroughly, not discharged." When the pain intensified, Mullings dialed 911 twice in 24 hours, but medics determined she did not need to be hospitalized, she said. On Sept. 15, Mullings' fiancé rushed her back to Brooklyn Hospital Center, where the sepsis infection became not only obvious but full-blown. The infection quickly choked off blood flow to her extremities and her right optic nerve, and she lapsed into a semicoma that lasted two weeks. "I woke up with black feet and black hands," Mullings said. Grappling to get the infection under control, doctors were forced to amputate both her feet and hands. The infection rendered her blind in her right eye. Mullings said that just a week before her catastrophic illness took hold, she passed the state court officers exam and was looking forward to a career as a civil servant. Now, battling depression, her dream is to someday walk again with the use of prosthetics and to be a helpful mother again to her three sons - Charles, 14; Enrique, 12, and Matthew, 9. "I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me," said Mullings, who is expected to be transferred by the end of the week to the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in Manhattan. "I believe in taking negatives and turning them into positives." She is not alone in her fight. Her brother, aunt and grandmother split shifts around the clock feeding her and holding up glasses of water for her to drink. "She is a woman who shows amazing strength and courage in her determination to live as normal a life as possible," Rubenstein said..................http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/11/20/2008-11-20_woman_blames_brooklyn_er_for_failing_to_.html
If this had been national healthcare.....she would STILL be waiting in line......there will NEVER be enough medical professionals to 'take care' of folks.....regardless of money......and our bodies ARE STILL A MYSTERY IS MILLIONS OF WAYS......not to mention the environment....... hospitals or anyother medical practice are not trained in the 'strange'.....there must be alot of more facts to her medical background that we are not privy too...
I dont know what I would would if I were in her spot......very very very sad......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
That is the other 'falsehood' in America......medicine does not have all the answers and alot of things, just are.......there is ALWAYS the percentage of adverse reactions, side effects and wrong theories/diagnosis.......not to mention just plain old, not enough workers.......
This is why I dont think drug commercials belong on TV.......unless you work in it, you dont get it..........there is no field with filled with flowers and a nice bike ride or clean white kitchen........
our bodies are the most complicated beautiful machines on earth......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
This is why I dont think drug commercials belong on TV.
I agree with THAT 100% ... "Talk to your doctor about Crestor" ... people are getting made up symptoms when they probably don't have anything wrong with them in the first place. Add to that the perks that docs get from the insurance companies and pharm reps - there's an equation for disaster.
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