ARP Attorney Mark Lura obtains defense verdict on behalf of neurosurgeon and advanced practice nurse

A Cook County jury recently found in favor of a defendant neurosurgeon and his advanced practice nurse, returning a Not Guilty verdict following a two-week trial and a mere 30 minutes of jury deliberations. The case was successfully defended by attorney Mark Lura. Plaintiff alleged that after undergoing a spinal surgery to remove a spinal cyst in his mid-back, he began to develop symptoms of numbness, weakness, and pain that were reported to the advanced practice nurse by his wife, but that the nurse failed to appropriately act on the complaints. Plaintiff was subsequently found to have developed a blood clot at the surgical site that was later evacuated by the defendant neurosurgeon two weeks after the original surgery. Plaintiff further claimed that the alleged delay in responding to his complaints resulted in a permanent incomplete spinal cord injury with severe deficits in ambulation and bowel control. The defense successfully contended that Plaintiff’s wife did not, in fact, report to the nurse what she claimed to have reported; that the neurosurgeon and nurse appropriately responded to all of the complaints made by Plaintiff’s wife; that both the defendant neurosurgeon and defendant advanced practice nurse complied with the standard of care; and that any permanent injury to the spinal cord was a result of the original and longstanding cyst rather than the post-surgical blood clot.