Traumatic brain injury can’t be seen and is often not diagnosed until it may be too late.

“In my line of work I see many cases of traumatic brain injury, usually as the result of an accident: motorcycle crash, car wreck, truck collision, slip and fall or even sports related injuries. Unfortunately, mild cases are not always detected right away, which can cause a lot of problems later – up to a year later in some cases,” added Christopher Mellino, a Cleveland malpractice lawyer specializing in Cleveland medical malpractice cases and traumatic brain injury in Ohio.

In the U.S. alone, there are over 1.5 million victims of accidents of one sort or another who will end up in the hospital with non-fatal traumatic brain injury. “Other figures I have seen also indicate that at least 3 million sports related traumatic brain injuries never get sent to the hospital. This is an enormous problem if you stop to think about it. Undiagnosed brain injury completely messes up the victim’s life and they may not even know why they are having problems,” added Mellino.

Speaking of sports like football, soccer, polo, jai-alai, hockey, volleyball and basketball, etc., victims who suffer brain injury while playing often fall into the category of mild traumatic brain injury. In these cases, the victim rarely loses consciousness and the changes in their brain are so microscopic they will not be detected by doing a CT scan or an MRI. The further bad news is that sometimes symptoms won’t manifest until two weeks later and in some cases, a year later.

“The delayed onset of traumatic brain injury symptoms has enormous consequences for lawsuits as you may well imagine,” Mellino added. “This is one of the major reasons I tell clients to never underestimate a head injury and insist on medical follow-up no matter how trivial they may think their accident was. The problem is not everyone recalls hitting their head at the time of the accident and the medical staff may overlook checking the head in favor of fixing the visible broken bone instead,” he observed.

Just because mild traumatic brain injury does not manifest right away, or it can’t be “seen” means that many people who have this will go undiagnosed, facing multiple problems that range from the inability to express themselves properly as they once did to suffering from impaired reasoning skills. The difficult thing is that if they don’t recall hitting their head, they may fear for their sanity.

“If their brain trauma was the result of someone else’s negligence, this is yet another reason to ‘not’ sign anything an insurance company hands you. Most insurance companies are trying to settle the case fast and cheap,” commented Mellino, a Cleveland malpractice lawyer specializing in Cleveland medical malpractice cases and traumatic brain injury in Ohio. Traumatic brain injury is a silent enemy and rapidly becoming an epidemic in the U.S.

To learn more, visit http://www.christophermellino.com.

When a patient takes a medication the doctor prescribed and something bad happens, the question of fault often arises.

“I’ve had a number of clients that were taking a medication that caused them some serious side effects and/or drug interactions. Initially, it looked like the fault was with the doctor or the pharmacist. Further probing indicated it was the drug manufacturer at fault,” Christopher Mellino explained. Mellino is a Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer of the Mellino Law Firm LLC, in Ohio.

Being human, we tend to blame drug reactions on the doctor for prescribing something that harmed us. Or, we may blame the pharmacist for not knowing enough about the drug to know that it could hurt us. Silently, under the cover of diffuse blame, lurks another entity that carries blame for defective/dangerous drugs – Big Pharma. Unfortunately, pharmaceuticals with nasty, unsettling, disturbing and/or fatal side effects are made every year, and every year they are prescribed to unsuspecting patients by (at times) unsuspecting doctors.  And every year, many of the unsuspecting patients seek help from an experienced Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer.

Consider the case of Fosamax and any of its other relatives that supposedly help battle brittle bones due to osteoporosis. Fosamax and its cousins, have bisphosphonates in them. This is a chemical found in laundry detergent.

“Yes, you’d be swallowing something in laundry detergent. Imagine what that does to your stomach and esophagus? Bottom line? This drug causes something called “Dead Jaw” and makes having dental work virtually impossible.  Dead jaw is also called osteonecrosis and it means your jawbone rots away after dental work if you are on this drug. Many dentists won’t treat patients taking Fosamax, particularly if they require extractions or other dental surgery,” observed Mellino.

Did the doctor know about the side effects? Possibly, but doctors don’t have a lot of time to read all the drug cautions on every drug they prescribe. In addition, the drug companies are often less than honest about the side effects of their drugs in the name of profit. Did the pharmacist know about the side effects? Again, possibly, but they deal with more drugs than a doctor does and although they are up-to-date on what new drugs are on the market, this doesn’t always mean they intimately know the  drug’s action for the short or long-term.

“More to the point in this kind of situation is the question of whether or not the drug company knew about the side effects. In many instances the answer is yes, they knew and did not adequately warn patients. Many are guilty of understudying or trialing drugs in order to rush them to market. As you can see, this raises some very interesting legal questions when it comes to culpability for drug side effects. Who holds the drug companies accountable for their less than ethical approach to drug making and marketing?” asked Mellino.

For those who feel they have been a victim of a defective/dangerous drug, contact a seasoned Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer. Someone has to take the responsible parties to task over drugs gone wrong.

To learn more, visit http://www.christophermellino.com.

Law enforcement is a tough job. It’s even tougher when suspects die a wrongful death by Taser.

More and more these days it’s pretty common to see news stories about someone dying as a result of being shocked with a Taser for too long. Their heart rhythm is interrupted and quite often, without prompt medical help, they will die. “There have even been stories of suspects and citizens ‘asking’ to be shocked, because they wanted to see what it felt like. Unfortunately, police in some instances have obliged them and they died,” commented Christopher Mellino, a Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer of the Mellino Law Firm LLC, in Ohio.

Wrongful death may come in many forms, but typically we tend to read about the deaths that are more newsworthy and spectacular; the deaths caused by being shot or Tasered. Sadly, it seems that Taser deaths are getting to be almost as common as gunshot wounds (GSW). Statistics have shown that more than 80 Americans die every day as a result of GSW – eighty people who met an untimely and wrongful death; death that was brought to them with malice aforethought.

“Granted that people who kill with guns generally get charged with homicide, a criminal offense, they could also face the civil charge of wrongful death filed by the victim of the family. Such is also the case when someone dies as a result of being Tasered for too long,” Mellino pointed out. “Certainly, cases that involve the use of a Taser by law enforcement that results in death are difficult, but lately, many of them have been settled by the police department and/or their local governments, which does point out that someone recognizes that the overuse of the Taser isn’t a good idea,” he observed.

“The bottom line here is that if you have been in a situation like this, or are currently in a situation like this, you will want to speak to a highly experienced wrongful death attorney. Someone needs to fill you in on what your rights are and what compensation you may be able to expect in a case such as this,” he added. “And that won’t happen unless you contact an attorney as soon as you can and start asking pointed questions. As I mentioned earlier, these kinds of cases are tricky, and you need a good attorney to help you get compensation.”

To learn more, visit http://www.christophermellino.com.