Texas Bedsore Lawyer

Bedsores are preventable injuries that are often a tragic, tell-tale sign of medical neglect in a hospital or nursing home.

Need a Texas Bedsore Lawyer? Collen A. Clark is a true advocate for his clients and is passionate about helping Texans that have been injured or wronged. If your loved one was injured or died of bedsores in a nursing home or hospital, you should contact our lawyers immediately. You may be entitled to compensation by filing a lawsuit.

Bedsore Lawsuits Against Nursing Homes & Hospitals

Every year, thousands of bedsore lawsuits are filed by the family members of sick or elderly loved ones who developed pressure sores and injuries in a nursing home or hospital. Bedsores are severe but preventable injuries that cause extreme pain and suffering, infections, and death.

What is a Bedsore?

Bedsores, also known as “pressure sores” or the medical term “decubitus ulcers,” are a frequent health problem for people who are immobilized in a bed or wheelchair.

About 2.5 million Americans develop bedsores each year. The people who develop bedsores may be very sick, elderly, paralyzed, critically ill, comatose, recovering from surgery, or having other health issues that limit mobility.

These patients require high-level, around-the-clock care in a nursing home, hospital, or long-term care facility. These are some of the most vulnerable patients. Tragically, although they are supposed to receive continuous caregiving, this is not the case in many situations.

What Causes Bedsores?

Bedsores are open wounds or sores on the skin. Early bedsores (Stage 1 or 2) look like a scrape or burned area of skin. They are red and superficial, and occur due to poor circulation to a part of the body.

Bedsores usually develop on body parts where the bones are close to the skin, such as the tailbone, hips, buttocks, head, or shoulders.

The appearances varies in later stages, but severe bedsores (Stage 3 or 4) are deep, crater-like open wounds. These sores may expose muscle, bone, subcutaneous fat, tendons, and dead or infected tissue.

Necrosis & Tissue Death in Severe Bedsores

Over time, bedsores can cause tissue death (called “necrosis”) due to a lack of blood-flow. Dead tissue may be dry and black (called “eschar”) or wet and stringy (called “slough”) that is yellow, tan, gray, green, or brown. This dead tissue is highly likely to become infected.

What is the Risk?

Necrotic tissue provides an ideal environment for bacteria to grow, causing infections. The bedsore will not heal until the necrotic tissue is removed through a surgery, debridement, or amputation. Delayed treatment may result in a necrotizing infection that rapidly causes death.

Can You Die From Bedsores?

Yes. Bedsores are not deadly on their own, but they provide a pathway for bacteria to get into the body and cause infections. Bedsores can lead to many life-threatening complications:

• Infections
• Sepsis (blood infections)
• Septic stock
• Organ failure
• Hospitalization
• Amputation of a limb
• Surgery
• Infections spreads to bones (osteomyelitis) or skin (cellulitis)
• Infection with drug-resistant bacteria like MRSA
• Death

Why Is Early Treatment So Important?

Early-stage bedsores can heal in a few weeks, but severe bedsores may take months to heal. Quick treatment is essential because bedsores can progress rapidly in sick patients, especially patients with a weakened immune system that is unable to fight off an infection.

It is essential for bedsores to be identified and treated when they first begin, when they still look like a rug-burn or scrape. Early bedsores can usually heal if the patient is repositioned more frequently to improve blood-flow, and the damaged skin is kept clean and dry.

Bedsore Treatment is Challenging in Understaffed Facilities

Bedsore treatment involves an even higher level of care for patients who are already very high-need or critically ill in a healthcare facility.

This often presents challenges in facilities that are chronically understaffed or unsanitary. The patient must be checked and repositioned more frequently. They may need special bathing procedures or medications. They may also require more frequent changes to bedding, diapers, clothing, or wound dressings.

The nurses are not at fault, in most cases, because in most cases they are doing the best they can. The problem is with the facility that maximizes profits by minimizing the amount of caregivers per patient.

Bedsore Lawsuits Often Filed by Angry Family Members

Family members are often paying large amounts of money to have a loved one under constant care, expecting that their loved one is in the best place to receive the high-level medical attention they require.

Instead, many families have been blindsided when their nursing home or hospital finally notified them that their loved one was suffering from bedsores, a life-threatening health issue that is often linked to neglect.

What Do Lawsuits Claim?

In some lawsuits, family members claim that the nursing home or healthcare facility minimized the severity of their loved one’s bedsores until it was too late. Or by the time the family realized their loved one was in a life-threatening situation, they were unable to switch facilities.

Bedsore lawsuits often involve family members who are angry that they paid exorbitant amounts of money to a facility that kept them in the dark, failed to provide proper care, and caused a helpless loved one to suffer extreme pain due to a preventable bedsore, or death.

Can I File a Lawsuit?

You may be eligible to file a lawsuit if you (or a loved one):

• Developed a bedsore, pressure ulcer, decubitus ulcer, or pressure injury while under the care of a physician, nurse, or healthcare professional in any facility, at any age
• Bedsore occurred in a hospital, nursing home, long-term care facility, etc.
• — OR the patient was at home under the supervision of a medical professional
• The bedsore caused a serious injury, hospitalization, surgery, or death

What Do Lawsuits Claim?

Thousands of bedsore lawsuits are filed every year. These lawsuits typically target institutions, rather than specific nurses or doctors, accusing companies of putting profits over the health of their patients.

Nursing homes and other healthcare facilities may be accused of chronic under-staffing, failing to train or supervise staff, failing to provide adequate nutrition or hydration, or problems with sanitation.

How Much Is My Lawsuit Worth?

Bedsore lawsuits can potentially end in multi-million dollar settlements and jury verdicts, with some awards exceeding $10 million.

These cases can be very extreme. It is not hard to find egregious examples like bedsores that became infested with maggots or patients who died of bedsores that become infected in unchanged diapers. In the most tragic and horrific cases, defendants may be eager to avoid the negative publicity of a jury trial.

How Can a Lawsuit Help?

Every case is unique and no outcome is guaranteed, but lawsuits will typically seek compensation for the victim’s pain and suffering, medical expenses, decreased quality of life, lost earnings (or earning potential), wrongful death of a loved one, and other financial damages.

Need a Bedsore Lawyer in Texas?

Collen A. Clark is a true advocate for his clients and is passionate about helping Texans that have been injured or wronged.

Collen’s amazing success in the courtroom and well known dedication to his clients has earned him the recognition of his peers as one of The Top Trial Lawyers in Texas.”

The Clark Firm has assembled a team of trial lawyers with more than 100 years of experience, participation in over 600 jury trials, and $260 million in verdicts and/or settlements. Please use the form below to contact our law firm for a free case review.