Louie, 62

The case study relates to a case settled by Eddie Jones, a specialist spinal injury solicitor in the JMW clinical negligence team, for a patient who developed bowel and bladder incontinence and sexual dysfunction due to mistakes that were made during surgery to treat a slipped disc.

This patient was later diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome as a direct result of the mistakes that were made that caused permanent nerve damage.

Although nothing could fully make up for this appalling care and injury, Eddie was successful in securing £125,000 for his client to help him to cope with the financial consequences.

Catalogue of poor care

Louie had suffered sciatic pain for a few months and when he visited his GP about it. At this time x-rays of his spine did not reveal any significant disc problems. However, over the coming weeks, Louie deteriorated and attended the hospital numerous times with symptoms that included loss of sensation in his right leg, episodes of urinary incontinence, diarrhea and sciatic pain in both legs.

Despite these worrying signs, an MRI scan of Louie’s spine, which would have shown a disc prolapse, was not carried out until more than two months after they first appeared. All the while, Louie was losing more of his mobility and experiencing a distressing loss of control of his bladder.

When the MRI scan was finally carried out, it showed multiple spinal cord discs had slipped out of place and were blocking Louie’s spinal cord. This required emergency surgery to prevent permanent damage from being caused. It was another few days before the operation was done, but even with these appalling delays, if the surgery had been done correctly Louie would have made a good recovery.

Tragically for Louie, the surgery was done very quickly and to a very poor standard. During the operation the surgeon damaged the cauda equina nerves irreversibly with the instruments used to treat the slipped discs.

Louie made a very poor recovery following surgery and was left severely debilitated.