Overdose reactions can cut off oxygen to the brain of drug rehab patients, leaving them at risk of brain damage.
A failure to monitor vulnerable patients can allow an overdose to occur, and for victims to experience long periods without oxygen getting to the brain.
When a facility’s negligent supervision is responsible for anoxic brain injury, victims and their families can seek compensation. This support could be required for a lifetime for a victim who suffers a catastrophic injury, such as a permanent brain injury.
Anoxic Brain Injury in Drug Overdose Patients
Johns Hopkins Medicine explains that when an organ like the brain receives reduced oxygen, it’s known as a hypoxic state. When all oxygen is cut off from the brain, it’s referred to as an anoxic state.
An overdose of a drug like Fentanyl often depresses the central nervous system, and this can affect the receptors in the brain that control breathing. Victims can experience respiratory issues, low blood pressure, and a severe lack of oxygen.
The Cleveland Clinic confirms that patients who aren’t getting oxygen to their brains can suffer injury or death within just a few minutes.
Negligence Leading to Overdose Brain Injury
A patient’s symptoms of an overdose and anoxic symptoms are supposed to be caught by regular bed checks and constant monitoring. Anoxic issues are difficult to spot in some cases, but it’s why staff members should be making face-to-face check-ins. It’s why they must confirm normal breathing when patients appear asleep or have their eyes closed.
These checks are important to discover an overdose and to make sure victims are avoiding respiratory difficulties after an overdose has been treated. Victims in recovery may need to be placed in a recovery position to help avoid respiratory issues. They may also have required hospital care that they had to wait on due to a delay in calling an ambulance.
Staff members can become careless or even skip their duties, leaving victims in an anoxic state longer, leading to more severe injuries and death.
Evidence of this negligence may not be easy to obtain. But a skilled attorney can get to the truth about what really caused severe brain damage or death. That can mean gaining access to documents and investigative reports that facility owners and their lawyers want to keep out of the family’s hands.
Catastrophic Anoxic Brain Injuries
A catastrophic injury usually refers to a severe injury that changes the lifestyle of the patient permanently. A physical disability, such as a permanent brain injury, would certainly qualify.
Catastrophic brain injuries require specialized care. Victims holding a California rehab center responsible can also need to ask for more in compensation for comprehensive care. They may also require support that lasts for a lifetime.
This is a brief list of the types of harm anoxic brain injury victims often endure and the care they may need:
- Seizures
- Coma
- Brain death
- Problems with movement
- Problems with coordination
- Problems with memory
- Trouble speaking
- Muscle weakness
- Physical therapy (to restore strength and mobility)
- Occupational therapy (to relearn daily tasks)
- Speech therapy (to help with communication and swallowing)
- Cognitive rehabilitation (to help with thinking and memory)
Victims may need home care, surgeries, and specialized equipment. How to pay for this critical support should be the worry of the negligent corporate owners of a drug treatment center.
Winning Support for Brain Injury Overdose Patients
A skilled attorney is often able to earn victims much more in support than families could by taking on a rehab facility network (and its lawyers) themselves.
An experienced lawyer fully investigates an overdose accident and demands every piece of evidence a facility may be hiding.
A lawyer files a claim on behalf of the patient and seeks these and other benefits:
- All medical bills and emergency response fees paid until a patient is 100% recovered
- All income lost while a patient couldn’t return to work replaced
- Lifelong support for patients who can’t ever return to work due to permanent brain damage (training for patients who can find work in other fields)
- Support for the pain anoxic brain injury patients may go through
- Support for the emotional trauma victims go through, including the setbacks in their Substance Use Disorder recoveries
- Wrongful death benefits for families who lose a loved one to an overdose brain injury at a clinic
- Punitive damages for victims and their families
Punitive damages are penalties added on to some wrongful death cases. They are meant to punish facilities that were extremely negligent in their duty to care for vulnerable patients. However, victims do receive any money that is paid through fines.
The act of negligent supervision caused by companies understaffing facilities to dangerous levels, and reducing monitoring, could lead to punitive damages.
Contact Us If a Rehab Center’s Negligence Left Your Loved One with Brain Injuries.
You may feel you are the only one standing up for a family member who was injured in a California drug rehab. But you aren’t alone.
We agree that your loved one wasn’t at fault for an overdose and any brain injuries that resulted. Negligent facilities need to be held fully accountable.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to victims and their families so they can go over all of their options.
Call us today or fill out a free case review form.