The law that applies to your claim
Continuous monitoring is the standard
Accepted practice requires continuous monitoring of oxygenation, ventilation, circulation and temperature throughout anesthesia, with a qualified provider present. Claims commonly allege that a deterioration was visible on the monitors and not acted on.
The pre-anesthetic assessment
A history should identify risk factors — sleep apnoea, difficult airway, cardiac disease, prior anesthetic reactions, current medication, allergies, and family history of malignant hyperthermia. Failure to take or act on that history is a recurring departure.
Who is responsible
The anesthesiologist, a nurse anesthetist, the supervising physician and the facility may each be involved. Where a facility’s staffing model left one provider covering more rooms than accepted practice permits, the institution’s own responsibility is in issue.
What goes wrong
- Airway management failure — oesophageal intubation, unrecognized disconnection, failure to secure a difficult airway
- Hypoxic brain injury from any period of inadequate oxygenation
- Dosing errors, including wrong drug and wrong concentration
- Anesthesia awareness — consciousness during surgery under paralysis, which is profoundly traumatic
- Malignant hyperthermia not recognized or dantrolene not given promptly
- Aspiration where fasting or airway protection was inadequate
- Nerve injury from positioning, or spinal and epidural complications including haematoma
The record is minute by minute
Unlike most of medicine, anesthesia generates a near-continuous contemporaneous record: the anesthesia chart with vital signs at short intervals, ventilator settings, end-tidal CO2, oxygen saturation, and every drug with dose and time.
Modern systems also retain the underlying machine data. Where a chart is smooth and the machine data is not, that discrepancy is significant — and it is why the electronic source data, not just the printed record, should be requested.
Related
Anesthesia claims frequently accompany surgical error claims, and epidural complications may also arise in the delivery context — see childbirth injuries.
How long you have to act
- Three years from the date of the accident for most negligence claims (CPLR §214).
- Two years for wrongful death (EPTL §5-4.1).
- 90 days to serve a notice of claim where a city, county, school district, transit authority or other public body is involved (General Municipal Law §50-e), with suit generally within one year and 90 days.
The 90-day rule is the one that quietly ends otherwise strong cases. If a public entity may be involved, that is the first thing to check — not the last.
What it costs
Nothing up front. These cases are handled on contingency: there is no fee unless we win, and the consultation is free. You will be told the percentage and how expenses are handled, in writing, before you sign anything.
Common questions
I woke up during surgery.
Anesthesia awareness is recognized and is compensable, including for the psychological injury that follows. The anesthesia record and the agent concentrations delivered are the starting point.
I was told I have a bad reaction to anesthesia.
If a known risk was documented in your history and not accounted for, that is a departure. If it was genuinely unforeseeable, it may not be.
My relative never woke up.
Hypoxic injury during anesthesia is usually well documented on the monitoring record. That record will show when oxygenation fell and what was done.
