A 67-year-old man was recently awarded $816,988 after he was left with permanent damage to his spinal cord after a 2014 spine surgery at Ashe County Memorial Hospital in Jefferson, N.C.
The man alleged he experienced a serious complication — spinal epidural hematoma — after he was left untreated for days after surgery.
After several alleged efforts to reach the spine surgeon's office and about a seven-hour stay in the hospital's ER, the man was transferred to Watauga Medical Center in Boone, N.C., for treatment.
The man alleged the delay in diagnosis led to compression on his spinal cord, which became permanently damaged and left him unable to work.
The jury awarded the man $416,988 in economic damages and an additional $400,000 in non-economic damages — the largest money damages jury verdict in Ashe County, according to the Clerk of Court's office.