Misdiagnosis leads to permanent injuries for Killeen man.

Our client Larry Bates, 45, had experienced intermittent back pain for years. On Easter Sunday 2000, the nature of his pain changed substantially and became excruciating. Bates lost control of his legs and fell to the floor.

EMS brought Bates to a Killeen emergency room, but the treating physician performed only a minimal exam, missing the classic signs of a rare and dangerous condition known as cauda equina syndrome. After an injection, the pain subsided briefly, then returned. A nurse gave Bates another injection. Soon after, he was discharged with instructions to stay in bed for several days and see an orthopedist if problems continued.

After returning home, Bates woke from a fitful sleep to discover he had no feeling in his legs. His parents rushed him back to the hospital. A different physician performed a thorough exam which revealed a herniated disc in Bates’ spine, compressing his spinal cord.

“This was an emergent situation, and the longer the pressure was on the nerves, the more chance there was of permanent damage,” said Mike Davis, who represented Bates in his claim against the original emergency room physician.

Bates endured two surgeries to decompress the spinal cord and remove remaining small disc fragments and a blood clot.

“As a result of the delayed diagnosis, he has suffered permanent nerve damage and partial loss of function below the waist. There is no cure for this type of neurological damage,” Davis said.