Hospital to give $5.5 million to Buffalo Grove woman.(News)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), September, 2002 | by Zalusky, Steve

Byline: Steve Zalusky Daily Herald Staff Writer Loyola University Medical Center has reached a $5.5 million settlement with a Buffalo Grove woman who was paralyzed after undergoing kidney surgery. Marie Italiano, 67, was admitted to the hospital in March 1999 for a malfunctioning kidney.

She sustained a spinal cord injury sometime between undergoing anesthesia and the morning after surgery. Italiano is now paralyzed from the waist down and requires round-the-clock care. Lawrence Helms, Loyola's attorney, said the hospital chose to settle mainly because it would have been difficult to explain to a jury why Italiano wound up with an unusual and apparently unrelated complication from kidney surgery. He said the hospital also felt it would have faced a...