SLIP/TRIP AND FALL CASE LEADS TO HEART SURGERY

Plaintiff fell at a truck stop when she slipped on a wet floor shortly after truck stop employee mopped that area without putting out a “wet floor” sign. Following her fall, on June 3, 2010, Trahan had a pulmonary embolism from a blood clot in her leg. She almost died as a result of this problem. As a result of this PE , she was placed on Coumadin. The literature attached clearly establishes that trauma can cause a PE and certainly the temporal nature of the event would suggest causation. The Coumadin (blood thinner) therapy is working; however, this treatment involves weekly visit to the Coumadin clinic for monitoring. For her neck, on September 16, 2011, Trahan was operated on at the LSU Health Science Center. Drs. removed the C5 through C7 anterior cervical plate and describes the surgery as a “Re-Do C6-C7 anterior cervical discectomy with Fusion.” Plaintiff will show that this “re-do” was necessitated by the fall due to a screw backing out prior to the full fusion of the January, 2010 ACF. Defendants contended that this was a non-union, with subsequent screw backing out. This was a known risk of the January 2010 surgery. Additionally, when she underwent her surgery, Trahan had to stop her Coumadin treatment. As a consequence of stopping her Coumadin, she was admitted to the hospital with complications and eventually needed a heart catheterization. Leslie has worked as a cashier a desk clerk and a dispatcher for most of her life. She would have had the capacity to go back to work, and was planning to go back to work, however she was unable to go back due to her injuries caused by this fall.