Prince George's County Jury Awards $18.65M After Hospital Delays Cost 23-Year-Old Her Leg

In December 2020, Jamie White, then 23, slipped on an icy sidewalk while walking to her job at a Taco Bell and dislocated her knee, tearing the ligaments. She was taken to University of Maryland Capital Region Health, where surgeons performed an initial operation roughly eight hours after the injury. Circulation to her lower leg was compromised during that procedure. A second surgery followed seven hours later. Those back-to-back periods of ischemia, together lasting many hours, deprived the tissue of oxygen long enough to cause irreversible muscle and nerve damage.

Over the next eight months, physicians attempted close to 30 procedures in an effort to save the limb. None worked. In August 2021, White's leg was amputated above the knee. She was 24 years old, the mother of young children.

Karen Evans of The Cochran Firm's Washington, D.C., office led the trial team. The case centered on whether the hospital's surgical scheduling met the standard of care. Evans told reporters: 'The standard of care should be the same, no matter where you get care. There is no lower standard of care for the residents of Prince George's County.'

After a trial spanning nearly five weeks before Judge Todd Steuart, the jury found University of Maryland Capital Region Health, Shock Trauma Associates, and Maryland Emergency Medicine Network Physicians liable. A vascular surgeon and his practice group were also named but found not to have substantially caused the injury. The jury's total award came to $18.65 million: $578,094 for past medical expenses, roughly $3.07 million for future medical expenses, and $15 million for pain and suffering.

Maryland statutes cap noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. The $15 million pain-and-suffering component was reduced to approximately $830,000 under that cap, bringing White's actual recovery to just under $4.5 million. University of Maryland Capital Region Health disputed the verdict, stating it provided timely and excellent care. No appeal outcome had been reported at the time of publication.

White described the ordeal in plain terms: 'You wake up regular one day, and then all of a sudden, one day, it all comes spiraling down.'