Misdiagnosis nearly blinded Christian missionary, he says. SC jurors awarded $2.5M

A Lexington County jury has awarded a Columbia area man $2.55 million in a lawsuit alleging a missed diagnosis by a Columbia area eye doctor that caused him to go nearly blind.

The trial in state civil court lasted five days and the jury was out about two hours, said attorney Todd Lyle, who tried the case with Paul Reeves, both from Columbia.

In his lawsuit, Ted Wingo alleged he went to Stanton eye clinic on Harbison Boulevard in November 2017 complaining of slight vision problems.

Wingo, 70, a former Christian missionary who with his wife spent 25 years in northern Mexico with the Western Tarahumara people, wanted his eyes checked after being out of the country, said Lyle.

Stanton employees performed various tests and exams on Wingo, including an “air puff” test, and concluded his eyes were “in good shape,” the lawsuit said.

“When Wingo inquired as to why his eyes were not being dilated, before concluding the examination, employees... responded that there was no need to dilate Wingo’s eyes because the examination was sufficient,” the lawsuit said.

Wingo relied on the diagnosis until early 2019, when he began to experience serious eye problems. That Stanton operation had closed so he went to the Eye Center, a major eye clinic in Columbia, where he was “diagnosed with dangerously high eye pressures and glaucoma, resulting in permanent optical nerve damage to both of his eyes,” his lawsuit said.

An Eye Center doctor told Wingo that the air puff test he’d been given is “notoriously unreliable” and that the standard of care requires for the dilation of the patient’s eyes in order to properly diagnose and treat vision problems similar to those experienced by Wingo in 2017,” the lawsuit said.

“The defendants ... should have known that the standard of care for examinations and diagnosing this particular disease of the eye required a proper and thorough process, including the dilation of the patient’s eyes and that the failure to do so resulted in the failure to properly diagnose Wingo and that is the proximate cause of Wingo’s current permanent damages to his eyes,” the lawsuit said.

The jury found that Dr. Prabhjot McTague was negligent in treating Wingo, according to the jury verdict form. Other defendants in the case included Stanton Optical, Vision Precision Holdings and Thomas Campen M.C. and Associates.

The jury returned a $3 million verdict, but ruled that Wingo was 15 percent at fault, so $450,000 was subtracted from the $3 million, leaving Wingo with $2.55 million.

“The defendants felt he should have been getting a regular eye exam after age 50.... and he probably had gone 3-4 years between eye exams,” Lyle said.

“Our position was that almost all of vision losses came in the year following his Stanton visit. Nearly all of his vision loss was completely preventable,” Lyle said.

Lyle said he had made an $850,000 offer of judgment, which the defendants turned down.

“They could have settled this case for $850,000, but they didn’t,” said Lyle. That means an additional $650,000 will be added to Wingo’s jury award, he said. State law encourages parties to make reasonable settlement offers, and if such an offer is rejected and the case goes to trial and verdict is obtained equal to or greater than the offer to settlement, money is added to the plaintiff’s award.

In their defense, lawyers for the doctor and the various eye companies in the lawsuit argued Wingo’s case should be dismissed.

McTague said in her answer to Wingo’s lawsuit that she could not say for sure whether she treated Wingo “due to a lack of patient medical records kept by Stanton Optical.” Moreover, her answer said, Wingo’s eye problems were due to his negligence, not hers.

Defendants also claimed the companies that operated the eye center did not employ McTague as an employee — she was an independent contractor and therefore the companies weren’t liable for her actions.

“We intend to appeal,” said Blake Williams, Columbia attorney who represented all defendants in the case except for McTague. Attorney Ron Diegel, who represented her, could not be reached for comment.

The judge in the case was William Keesley.

In a brief interview, Wingo said he is “looking forward to new eyes in heaven” and bears no ill will towards anyone.

This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 4:25 PM.