Attorneys for student who lost arm seek big damages from OU

Attorneys for a former Ohio University student who lost an arm because of an alleged misdiagnosis at the former Hudson Health Center have argued that the university may owe her and her parents up to $3 million in damages, and potentially a great deal more than that, on top of any medical expenses.

In a legal motion filed Jan. 26 in the Ohio Court of Claims, attorneys for Molly Millsop and her parents asked Judge Joseph T. Clark to rule that the amputation of Millsop's right arm is a "catastrophic loss" that under Ohio law qualifies her and her parents to receive millions of dollars in "non-economic" damages. The Millsops are from the Dayton area.

The student's arm was removed to save her life, after she became infected with necrotizing fasciitis, a rare flesh-eating bacterium. In September 2007, as a freshman at OU, she had gone to Hudson Health Center (at the time the name of the university's student health clinic) three times complaining of severe pain, fever and nausea, and had been diagnosed as suffering from minor disorders including sore throat, muscle pain and anxiety.

Finally, Millsop called her father, who drove her to a Columbus hospital where physicians had to amputate her arm.

Millsop sued OU in 2008. She withdrew her complaint in 2010, but re-filed it in 2011.

Attorneys for OU have argued that staff at Hudson were not incompetent for not recognizing necrotizing fasciitis. Expert medical witnesses for the defense have said that the infection is a rare condition almost never seen in healthy young people with no predisposing conditions such as diabetes, intravenous drug use or colon cancer. Therefore, they argue, for a physician to miss it in Millsop's case is not surprising.

In a memo supporting their latest court filing, however, Millsop's attorneys allege that Hudson's medical personnel simply ignored Millsop's repeated complaints that something was very wrong with her.

According to a recounting of alleged facts in the document, Millsop began feeling ill the evening of Sept. 5, 2007, with a fever and shaking. She called her brother in Nelsonville, who drove her to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital.

After being seen briefly by a doctor or nurse there, the document states, Millsop's fever dropped, and she decided to go to her brother's home.

The next morning, the court filing claims, Millsop experienced a "stabbing pain" in her right arm above her elbow, as well as nausea and chills. She went to Hudson around 8 a.m., at which point "the pain in her arm seemed to be spreading."

A physician at Hudson listened to Millsop's symptoms during a 10-minute exam, the document says, and swabbed her throat for a strep infection.

When Millsop expressed concern about her arm pain, the filing claims, the physican "did not seem to think the pain was relevant," and asked if Millsop might have injured her arm during exercise. She then diagnosed Millsop with acute pharyngitis and muscle strain.

Millsop returned to her dormitory, where her pain got worse and continued to spread, and she suffered alternate fever and chills, her attorneys allege.

She returned to Hudson, where she told the physician who had seen her earlier that "she felt like she was about to pass out, and that she couldn't breathe because her arm hurt so badly," according to a deposition. The physician allegedly told her that "if she could get her breathing under control… the pain would lessen." Millsop began vomiting soon afterwards.

The physician diagnosed Millsop's suffering as hyperventilation stemming from "an adjustment reaction with anxiety," based on being away from home for the first time – though Millsop had been on a trip to Europe the year before without her parents.

Though Millsop repeatedly complained to Hudson staff about her increasing pain, the document alleges, "no one seemed to pay attention," and staffers "seemed to think that Molly just needed to calm down." She called her father, who agreed to come and pick her up.

While he was on the way, she called him again, seeming to him "incoherent" and saying she was in "a great deal of pain." While waiting for her father, the motion alleges, Millsop asked a nurse if she should go to the O'Bleness emergency room, and was told that "the emergency room was not likely to do anything for her that the health center wasn't doing."

Millsop's father has testified that when he got to Hudson, he got the impression that staff felt his daughter "was being over-dramatic." He described his experience there as "almost surreal." After he got Millsop to O'Bleness, she "began to scream from the pain in her arm," according to her and her father's depositions.

When X-rays were taken of Millsop's arm, an O'Bleness physician concluded she was suffering from necrotizing fasciitis, and would need to be flown immediately to a Columbus hospital. She was rushed into surgery in Columbus, and a nurse told her father that surgeons "were working very hard to save Molly's life," but might have to remove her arm. They ended up having to do so, to prevent the infection spreading to her vital organs, the court filing says.

Millsop's attorneys have argued that her loss clearly qualifies as a "catastrophic injury" under Ohio law. OU "should concede this fact," argues attorney Dwight D. Brannon, but "probably will not."

Brannon does not name a dollar figure in his motion, but argues that OU should be held liable for up to $1 million in non-economic damages each for Millsop and each of her parents, and that this should also be based on each occurrence of malpractice. This would mean that the damages could be multiplied by however many Hudson employees are found to have been involved in the alleged malpractice.

Even if the law capping damages in such cases is not found to be unconstitutional, as Millsop's attorneys have asked the court to do, the maximum per-plaintiff and per-occurrence damage amount should be $500,000, Brannon maintains.

A trial in the case to determine OU's liability is scheduled for April.