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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ohio woman says hospital test left her in wheelchair

HUNTINGTON – An Ohio woman alleges she is confined to her wheelchair as she is no longer able to walk with a cane after a botched CT angiography.

Frankye Touchett filed a lawsuit July 21 in Cabell Circuit Court against Cabell Huntington Hospital.

Touchett claims her problems began as she was undergoing diagnostic proceedings at Cabell Huntington Hospital on July 22, 2007, after experiencing chest pains.

Doctors were performing a CT angiography on Touchett when they began having problems gaining IV access. They made multiple attempts at installing the IV, which was being used to deliver contrast media into Touchett's bloodstream to illuminate images in the heart scan, according to the complaint.

"As the contrast dye was pushed through plaintiff's IV, she immediately began feeling an intense burning sensation with excruciating pain," the suit states. "In response, the plaintiff began calling out and screaming to personnel for help however, there was no immediate response."

The dye seeped from Touchett's veins into the tissues of her right hand, causing an extravasation injury, the complaint says. The leaking dye caused Touchett's hand to immensely swell within minutes, she says.

"Her right hand ballooned from the swelling beyond that of normal size," the suit states.

Because of the extravasation, Touchett has experienced a functional loss of her right hand, reduced grip strength, tissue and structure damage and permanent scarring, the complaint says.

"Her resulting injury negatively affected her mobility by decreasing her grip strength to such a degree she was no longer able to walk with the aid of her walker thereby confining her to a wheelchair since the incident," the suit states.

Touchett claims medical negligence against Cabell Huntington Hospital.

She is seeking unspecified compensatory, punitive and exemplary damages, plus civil penalties, attorney's fees, pre- and post-judgment interest, all statutory, common law and equitable relief to which she may be entitled and other relief the court deems just.

Timothy L. Eves of Eves Law Firm in Huntington will be representing her. The case has been assigned to Judge F. Jane Hustead.

Cabell Circuit Court case number: 09-C-616

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