It’s not just doctors that can kill someone as a result of a mistake. Pharmacists may be held liable for medication errors.
If it were not for her alert son, Christiane Wiggins might have died as a result of what she thought was an injection of vitamin B12. Wiggins had called in her prescription to her local pharmacy and it came in the usual container, tucked in a paper bag. The container was even labelled “Cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).”
While waiting for her son to help her with the injection, she noticed that the liquid in the bottle seemed to be a different color than usual. Additionally, the bottle cap was also a different color. Neither of those things worried her, as drug companies often change their packaging and drug stores often change drug suppliers.
Wiggins’ son took one look at the bottle and asked what was in it. He had medical training and knew that what he was holding in his hand was not vitamin B12, even though the bottle looked the same. The drug he was holding was atropine, used in resuscitating cardiac arrest patients.
The pharmacy had given Wiggins the wrong prescription and had her son not been alert, recognizing that there was a difference in medications, Wiggins could have suffered a heart attack or stroke. She could have died. Her medications came from a military base, which sent its prescriptions to another location to be filled. Someone had not paid attention to what they were doing and gave Wiggins atropine instead of vitamin B12.
Even though Wiggins was lucky enough to catch the mistake before anything happened, this kind of error happens countless times every day in hospitals and by pharmacies. While it could be called an oversight, it is really negligence. Medication errors such as this one can be deadly.
Had the family lost their mother to a pharmacy error, they would likely have spoken to a personal injury, wrongful death/medical malpractice lawyer to obtain justice. Once they hired an attorney, they would be eligible to apply for a lawsuit loan, also referred to as pre-settlement funding. Litigation funding is used by plaintiffs to pay off their outstanding medical bills and keep current with their usual monthly obligations, while waiting for their case to be resolved.
Litigation funding, or a lawsuit cash advance, arrives in a plaintiff’s bank account within 24 to 48 hours after being approved. There are no hoops to jump through to obtain a lawsuit loan and the process may be initiated by making a phone call, or filling out an application online.
Daren Monroe writes for Litigation Funding Corp. To learn more about lawsuit funding and litigation funding, visit http://www.litigationfundingcorp.com/.
