Naperville Birth Injury Lawyers
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AMAZING! I highly recommend this group. We had quite an unusual case, this group was our only glimmer of hope when our options were limited and no one would accept a complicated case. We worked closely with Colin O’Malley and his team. Words cannot do justice to how wonderful they are; highly competent, professional, very responsive, thorough and friendly. Colin went above and beyond to make himself available and to answer all our questions and concerns. If you need an excellent proficient injury lawyer that would fight for you, look no further!
– Muna Zarour
I had the pleasure of working with attorney Tom Grace on my deceased father’s personal injury case.Tom was very prompt in all of his communications, he never left us guessing what was going on or where we were in the process, he offered up his honest opinion when it was decision making time and lastly he ensured this case wasn’t dragged out.I would highly appreciate his customer service and would absolutely recommend Tom Grace and the Chute, O’Malley, Knobloch & Turcy team.
– Sheronda Farrow
– Patricia Duran
– Marissa
– Kathleen Haney
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Naperville Birth Injury Lawyers
When new life enters the world, it is supposed to be a joyous occasion. There should be much celebration following a birth of a new baby.
However, if you are here reading this page, you likely went through something traumatic.
Your birth story is probably unlike anything you could have imagined.
Our Naperville birth injury lawyers are here to help you if you or a loved one have endured birth injuries. We help families get justice when the birthing team does something wrong, causing harm to the baby or mother.
We strongly encourage that you reach out to our office right away to set up your free first consultation.
Keep reading to hear a story of our former client and what she and her baby went through. Then read until the end to learn about some of the biggest case mistakes to avoid making.
Naperville Birth Injury Client Story
Disclaimer: The names and some details of this story have been changed to protect the identity of our client.
Christina was desperate to give birth. She was 38 weeks pregnant, and the baby was measuring much larger than average.
She had spent the last month running on barely any sleep. Her restless leg syndrome was keeping her up.
This was not an easy pregnancy. She hoped every day that baby would come.
Her husband Paul was great. He listened to every complaint without telling her she was hormonal.
Christina was so uncomfortable that, for the last week, she was off of work. Paul was ready to take his leave, too.
Everything was ready for baby. The nursery was set up, the hospital bags were packed, and they kept the gas tank above half a tank at all times.
One night, Paul got home late from work. Christina had the TV on while she sat on a large aerobics ball eating spicy Indian food hoping to induce labor..
Nothing happened. She was so grateful to be able to carry this baby to term, but she was beyond ready for the baby to come out.
They were waiting to find out if it was a boy or a girl, so there was even more anticipation.
That night, Christina cried to Paul.
“I just want this baby to come. I can’t take another night,” she cried.
As if it was an answer to her prayers, Christina stirred awake at 5 in the morning to what felt like she had peed her pants.
She sat up in bed and looked down at the sheets which were wet.
She thought that there was no way her water broke. That rarely happened to people.
She decided to go to the bathroom to see if she could tell.
As she stood up, it was clear to her this was not her having incontinence. Her water broke and it was time to go.
“Paul,” she said.
He shot up in a panic, “What? What is it?”
“My water broke.”
They looked at each other with tired, nervous smiles.
“We better get going,” Paul said.
In less than twenty minutes, the bags were loaded into the car, towels were laid down on the front seat and they were off.
Christina was admitted. She was two centimeters dilated with contractions that were about 4 minutes apart.
She was hooked up to the monitors right away where she could see the rise and fall of the contractions.
Right now she was trying to do this all without medication. She was most afraid of an epidural. She didn’t like the idea of the needle sitting in her spine.
The sun was rising when the doctor came back in to poke and prod and invade her privacy. They weren’t seeing any progression in her labor. It was still early according to the doctor and she still wasn’t done with her water breaking so he wasn’t too concerned.
Based on her level of pain, she was comfortable enough to go on without the pain meds.
Paul tended to her through every contraction. They were still not terribly painful. Christina felt that this was good. Maybe her pain tolerance was higher than she thought.
They sat there are discussed the short list of names. They had two options for a girl and three for a boy.
It was another couple of hours before the doctor came back in. He looked concerned this time. The labor was not progressing as it really should be. Christina was beginning to worry at this point.
Baby was still firmly tucked up there and had not dropped.
Because the water had broken already, there was a risk.
The doctor said he would be back to check again because the contractions were starting to get closer together, they just weren’t getting stronger.
After another hour or so, the doctor decided that they should try Pitocin to strengthen the contracts and move things along quicker. He also gave Christina some pain medication because the Pitocin was going to make things a lot more painful.
Time was irrelevant to Christina as labor started to intensify. Paul remained right by her side for all of it.
At one point, they had Christina lay on her side with a pillow between her knees and an oxygen mask on.
It was several more hours, with an increased dose of the Pitocin before the doctor told her that if things did not get better in the next hour or so, they were going to have to consider C-section.
What happened in the remaining hours of Christina’s labor would scar their family forever.
The C-section was in fact needed.
They determined that baby’s heart rate was dropping. With it having been so long since her water broke, there were major complications.
As the doctor performed the C-section, they realized it was too late.
Christina and Paul got to see their daughter but she did not survive long after giving birth.
The C-section came too late.
They were completely devastated.
After dealing with the trauma of afterbirth, they went back to an empty home.
Paul wanted to know what he could do for his wife. This wasn’t okay. She deserved justice.
He found us online and set up a free consultation where he asked three main questions.
- How do we know we have a case?
- Who are we bringing the claim against?
- What is our claim worth?
Continue to the end to learn what Paul learned during this free consultation.
How do we know we have a case?
Paul came in alone. This meeting was far too much for Christina to go through right away.
He wanted to know if he even had ground to stand on legally. He was devastated and mad. He wanted justice for his family so badly.
We explained to him that we can have a medical expert review the case. If this medical expert determines that their doctor acted outside of the expected level of care, then we would be able to bring a claim.
Who are we bringing the claim against?
In most cases of birth injuries, we would be bringing the claim against the delivering doctor or the hospital. In Paul and Christina’s case, this was a bad decision made by the doctor to wait to perform the C-section.
We did not know for certain at the time of the consultation that the doctor would be the liable party, so we promised Paul to thoroughly investigate the incident to confirm the liable party.
What is our claim worth?
When Paul came to us, he mainly cared that the doctor would be punished for making a bad choice that ruined his hopes at becoming a dad and caused his wife the most grief he had ever seen her go through.
We told him that the purpose of these cases is to help them become whole again. These types of cases don’t typically punish the doctors the way grieving families might like. But this is the justice available to him.
He asked us how much the claim would be worth.
We told him that all the loss he was facing was going to be a huge factor in determining the value of the claim.
It would include all of the medical bills, lost wages, fees for therapy following the event, etc. Every bit of financial loss would matter. Also, all of the grief felt by Christina and Paul would be relevant in the worth of their claim.
We told him that we couldn’t promise him a dollar figure right away, but we would do all of the investigation necessary to put together a compensation award that we believed to be full and fair.
We would then fight with the insurance company to ensure that the award they provided accurately represented all of the loss that Christina and Paul had to endure.
Birth Injury Case Mistakes
Christina and Paul went through the most severe birth injury case you can experience. Theirs was a wrongful death case. Some cases of birth injuries do end up with the child surviving. If you are one of those victims, we want you to know what not to do following the birth. Avoiding these mistakes will help you get the results that you deserve.
Not Getting All the Medical Care for Your Child
In the event your infant survived a traumatic birth injury, your child will most likely need immediate medical care. Not only will this potentially prevent the injury from getting worse, but it will also ensure that the insurance company does not have any leverage to use against you in your pursuit of compensation.
Insurance companies are notoriously greedy.
They see birth injury cases as expenses that they would like to limit.
When you delay getting your child medical care that they need, not only is your child at risk of suffering without the care, you are also putting their case at risk.
The insurance company can always claim that the condition could not possibly be as bad as you say it is if you could wait to get medical care for the child.
The best thing you can do for your child and the success of the case is to get them immediate medical care.
Assuming Your Child’s Condition is not Because of a Birth Injury
We have seen far too many cases in which our clients almost did not reach out to us because they were afraid of being wrong about having a case.
We know there are so many people who simply do not reach out because they assume that the injury their child endured was not avoidable.
We want you to know that if you even have a hint of a suspicion that the injury occured because your delivery team or obstetrician made a mistake, then you should absolutely reach out to us to see what we can do for you.
We offer free consultations where you can describe the birth story to us.
While we are not doctors, we have seen enough of these cases to be able to tell you if this is something we should pursue further or not.
Call us right away to set up a free consultation. We can help you determine if you have a case.
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Attempting to Handle This Alone
You can just about guarantee that these insurance companies and their lawyers are extremely talented at negotiation. They have been trained specifically to handle issues like this.
When people try to handle insurance companies alone, they are often met with skilled representatives and lawyers who can negotiate better than them.
Handling a case as complicated as this with insurance companies as skilled as those who represent doctors, usually do not end in your favor.
We do not want you to suffer.
This is your one and only opportunity to get the compensation you deserve.
The benefit of having a lawyer by your side cannot be emphasized enough.
Having a lawyer ensures that you do not get stepped all over by an insurance company who really hoped that you were not being represented by a trial lawyer.
Waiting to File Your Claim
In Illinois, you do not have forever to bring your claim. You are going to be held to a statute of limitations. This is a legal deadline of two years from the date of your incident to file for your claim.
Sometimes this two year deadline will begin when you discover (or when you should have reasonably discovered) that the birth injuries were related to a mistake made by the doctor.
Birth injuries are not always apparently obvious. It is important that the second you suspect that this was because of a doctor’s error, you reach out to our office.
It would be a real tragedy if you went through all this pain and suffering, did not reach out to a lawyer in time, and then miss out on getting the compensation that you deserve.
We never want to see that happen to our clients.
Hiring the Wrong Lawyer
Please understand that birth injury cases are complicated. They require thorough investigation as well as a skilled lawyer to handle it successfully.
We strongly recommend that you choose your lawyer carefully.
You only get one opportunity to get justice. Do not throw away this shot by hiring the wrong lawyer.
We have seen people hire a family friend to handle their case. Sometimes a lawyer will take on birth injury cases every now and then even though they don’t usually handle these types of cases. That is not the person who you want to trust your case with.
You want a lawyer who has extensive experience in this area of law. You want to make sure that this lawyer has a long list of success stories. You should not settle for anything less.
Call Our Naperville Birth Injury Lawyers Today
If you or your loved ones have suffered birth injuries, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our office right away. You and your family deserve justice. We are here to help you. Call our office today to set up your free first consultation.
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