Fitness Instructor Permanently Disabled After Nerve Block

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A 30-year-old healthy fitness instructor tore her ACL while doing jump squats.

She saw an orthopedic surgeon who booked her for an ACL reconstruction with a quadriceps tendon autograft.

Post operatively she could not perform a straight leg raise, and felt a disconnect between her quadriceps and knee with tingling and burning throughout.

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She contacted an attorney one month after her surgery who filed a notice of claim of malpractice. This claim was directed at the care she received immediately after her injury at the ED, and also directed at her surgeon.

As the lawsuit commenced, workup for her neuropathy was progressing. She eventually received an EMG which demonstrated acute denervation in the muscles innervated by the femoral nerve, consistent with a left femoral neuropathy.

The noted anesthetic for her procedure was a femoral nerve block with a general anesthetic.

The blame now shifted to the nerve block, as opposed to the graft site harvest or tourniquet injury.

She received a femoral block at the end of the procedure during emergence from GA.

The anesthesiologist claims the patient was awake for this block.

Experts were hired. Here is the plaintiff’s anesthesiology expert.

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