Plaintiff, who was 54 years old at the time of the accident, was injured in a rear end motor vehicle accident. She suffered injuries to her neck, back and shoulders and was treated in the emergency room. Plaintiff then underwent conservative treatment followed by a course of epidural steroid injections. When those treatments failed to relieve her pain, she sought a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon performed the following: anterior cervical discectomy and decompression of the canal with interbody fusion at C4-5 utilizing a single DePuy prosthetic device and application of anterior cervical Eagle Plus Titanium DePuy locking plate in addition to micro-dissection of the nerve roots using the operating Zeiss microscope. Once Plaintiff recovered from her cervical spine, she returned to surgeon to followup with treatment and/or surgical intervention concerning her lumbar spine at that time.
She underwent a T12, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5 six level central canal decompression, laminectomy, lateral recess decompression and foraminotomy, with partial facetectomy; T2 L1, L1-L2, L2-L3, L3-L4, L4-L5, 5 level bilateral lateral fusion; T2 L1, L1-L2, L2-L3, L3-L4, L4-L5, 5 level bilateral segmental posterior screw Instrumentation using DePuy titanium screws and rods; Autogenous spinous process morselized bone graft; Microdissection of the nerve roots using the operating microscope; Interpretation of intraoperative x-rays without the presence of a radiologist; Insertion of Bone Morphogenic Protein Biologic.
The matter settled prior to trial for $450,000 on April 12, 2019.
