Clifford Law Offices Receives $2.91 Million Verdict on Behalf of Woman who Died at Surgery Center
Press Release, 04/16/2010Clifford Law Offices today (Friday, April 16, 2010) obtained a $2.91 million verdict on behalf of a Chicago woman who died after an anesthesiologist improperly intubated her during a routine outpatient procedure.
Crystal Malak was 52 years old when she went to the Tinley Woods Surgery Center on March 4, 2005, on Chicago’s southwest side for a routine outpatient cervical epidural steroid injection for cervical degenerative disc disease. She went into respiratory arrest 10 minutes after the injection which resulted in brain injury and her death the next day.
Robert A. Strelecky, partner at Clifford Law Offices, tried the two-week case with Kimberly Halvorsen, associate at the firm, before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence O’Gara. The five-man-seven-woman jury deliberated just under seven hours before finding against the anesthesiologist for $2.91 million at the Daley Center.
Dr. David Bird was found to have performed an improper intubation when the ETT tube was found in her esophagus and not her trachea. Malak had been married to her husband, William for 32 years. She also left behind four adult children.
“The jury saw the total negligence here for a wife and mother who had many, many years left to live,” Strelecky said following the verdict. “The procedure should have been done correctly and instead Mrs. Malak’s family has had to endure her death because the standard of care simply wasn’t followed.”
