A Pulaski County Circuit Court jury awarded $3 million to the widow of a man who suffered a severe bed sore in 2017 while at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.
James Lanham of Rich, which is near Clarendon, died of unrelated causes in September 2022, according to Thomas Buchanan, one of the attorneys who represented Lanham and then his widow, Paula Lanham.
The jury agreed unanimously Thursday on the judgment in the malpractice lawsuit.
Buchanan and the Lanhams’ other attorney, W. Bryan Smith, argued that the problem was not that hospital staff failed to move the patient frequently but that staff didn’t do so in the correct way, leading to the pressure ulcer, the term for a bedsore.
Contacted today, Buchanan said the defense argued that the bedsore, suffered when James Lanham was sedated and on a ventilator in the hospital’s intensive care unit, was unavoidable because of Lanham’s many health problems. Those included uncontrolled diabetes, a kidney disorder, hypertension and obesity.
Buchanan said the wound eventually closed but never healed and remained a problem for years.
I’ve reached out to Baptist Health for comment.
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