Hospital negligence often causes Chicago patients to suffer severe or fatal injuries and health complications. But hospital negligence can also harm patients emotionally and mentally without causing any physical damage.
When this happens, a harmed patient may want to consider consulting an experienced medical malpractice attorney who will help the patient determine whether he or she may be entitled to recover compensation for a hospital’s damaging mistake.
Just this week, a lawsuit was filed in Cook County by a man who claims that a Chicago hospital made a serious error that will now prevent him from being able to have biological children. The man was not physically harmed by the hospital’s error, but the mistake will certainly affect him for the rest of his life.
According to the lawsuit, the man had his sperm frozen at the Chicago hospital in 2008 so that he could one day try to conceive biological children. Men who want to have children may choose to have their sperm frozen before cancer treatments or before other illnesses progress because certain medical treatments could cause sperm to become sterile.
Over the following four years, the man continued to pay fees to keep his sperm frozen and secure at the medical facility. However, something went wrong with the facility’s cryopreservation tank between April and June of this year. The tank that contained the man’s sperm had malfunctioned, and his sperm was thawed. This has caused permanent damage because the sperm was destroyed. Other men may have been affected by this problem as well.
Reports have not indicated what caused the cryopreservation tank to malfunction or when the hospital noticed that something was wrong with its equipment.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Lawsuit: Malfunctioning tanks destroyed sperm,” Bridget Doyle, Oct. 16, 2012
