Jury awards $1.4 million after alleged poor care to newborn at Prisma Children’s Hospital

A Richland County jury has awarded $1.4 million in actual damages in a medical malpractice case against Prisma Health Children’s Hospital-Midlands that involved complications after a baby girl’s premature birth.

The jury was out for just 35 minutes in a case that took a week to try.

The only issue in this case is whether nurses at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital failed to provide proper care to the baby while she was wearing a type of facial covering that allowed a continuous flow of oxygen and kept her airways open.

Such devices are supposed to be regularly monitored by nurses to prevent the fragile skin of a prematurely-born baby from being damaged by the pressure that the device exerts on the skin. Failure to properly monitor the device can cause permanent damage to the nose and areas around it, according to evidence in the case.

“The bottom line is this baby needed to be on a device to keep her lungs pressurized because her lungs weren’t developed enough...., but you have to be careful when you do that because anything that touches a baby’s skin can cause damage,” said Brendan Green,the plaintiffs’ co-counsel along with attorney Grace Babcock.

The suit was brought by the baby’s father, Earl Sale, a South Carolina National Guard F-16 avionics engineer, and her mother, Mary Sale, an electrical engineer with Dominion Energy.

Both parents testified during the trial. An expert nurse-educator who instructs nurses at various hospitals on the proper monitoring of devices that provide oxygen to newborns also testified for the plaintiffs.

Prisma had made an offer of $25,000 to settle the case before it went to trial, the Sales’ lawyers said.

The baby has had reconstructive surgery and may require additional surgery, Babcock said. “This was a permanent injury and she did need surgery.”

Prisma argued that its care and treatment of the baby was proper, within the normal standards of hospital care, and it “breached no duty of care owed to the patient,” according to its legal answer.

Prisma did not reply to an email query seeking comment. Neither did its two main trial lawyers, David Holler and Alex Atkinson.

The Sales brought the lawsuit to help ensure “this would not happen to the next person’s child,” Green said.

Judge Jocelyn Newman presided.

This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 1:59 PM.