$9M Award in Malpractice Lawsuit

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A jury has awarded $9.1 million to a former auto mechanic who suffered spinal cord damage and paralysis in a 2012 surgery.

The Star Tribune reports that Joseph Lakoskey's attorney argued that an anesthesiologist left him dangerously dehydrated before surgery at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale to repair a perforated bowel.

Lakoskey went to the hospital with flu-like symptoms and received fluids for dehydration until doctors found his injury and recommended surgery. But his attorney says his treatment for dehydration was halted while he was started on anesthesia before surgery, which caused his blood pressure to drop and his spinal cord to get inadequate blood flow.

Attorneys for Anesthesiology P.A., the private practice that provides anesthesia services at the hospital, denied that was the cause of Lakoskey's injury.