Simple Injection, Or Potential For Serious Kingston Medical Malpractice?

Getting a shot at the doctor’s office, simple enough—right?  Lots of people get shots all the time, including children.  Adults get shots too, for vaccines or other injections for pain like steroids or cortisone.  In hospitals almost every patient in an emergency room or admitted room gets an IV for fluid, which is also an injection.

While almost every single time an injection causes no more than some pain during the shot, and maybe some soreness after—even maybe a few days for some types of shots—some patients may actually get more serious reactions and injuries from the shots.  In fact, injections can result in catastrophic injury to a patient in certain circumstances.  This includes the following causes and injuries:

Injection at the wrong site – giving an injection at the wrong place, wrong angle, and wrong depth can cause serious injury if it hits a nerve, blood vessel, or other vital structure that the injection was not meant to come close to and harm.  Even if the needle does not touch the structure, releasing the caustic material could result in damaging the structure with the injected chemicals.

Improperly sterilized needle – if a healthcare provider fails to properly sterile the needle, it can literally be injecting bacteria and other toxic materials into a person.  This can result in infections which are more than skin deep, and even infections in the muscles or other vital structures.  These types of infections which are not caught quickly can result in sepsis and other deadly complications.

Improper IVs can result in necrosis and even death – when an IV is improperly inserted into a patient, it can result in very serious complications.  The fluid can slowly drip into the flesh or a person instead of the bloodstream.  This can result over time in massive complications.  This is particularly true because medications are run through IV lines which can cause these serious reactions and infections.  If very strong drugs are being administered, they will just sit against a person’s flesh where they are not supposed to go.  This can cause horrific injury.