Man awarded $59K for incorrect death diagnosis

Brain scan (ThinkStock)

It?s everyone?s worst nightmare: Being diagnosed with a terminal illness and given only months to live. Then, after several months, learning it was all a mistake.

Mark Templin was recently awarded an almost $60,000 settlement for just such an agonizing experience.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy pointed to Dr. Patrick Morrow's "negligent failure to meet the standard of care" in giving the the terminal brain cancer diagnosis in 2009.

Templin had come in to the Fort Harrison VA Medical Center with chest pains.

After being given a stent, he appeared to recover, only to return a week later, complaining of problems with memory, vision, speech, and headaches.

After getting a CT scan, he was told of the diagnosis and that he only had months to live.

Thinking he had a death sentence hanging over him, the man sold his truck, quit his job, held a ?last birthday party,? and paid for his future funeral. His son-in-law built a box for his impending ashes.

The man in his 70s even contemplated suicide, according to CBS News.

Then, inexplicably, Templin began to get better. He went back for more tests, and found he had a series of small strokes.

Templin did not have brain cancer. But he did have a lawsuit on his hands.

The judge noted that his ruling was influenced by Templin?s actions, who believed he would soon die. He was prescribed two kinds of medication to treat the supposed brain cancer, one drug that is not to be taken to stroke victims, according to CBS News. He was also given hospice care, a service provided to those with terminal illness.

?It is difficult to put a price tag on the anguish of a man wrongly convinced of his impending death," Molloy wrote in his ruling, according to CBS News.

"Mr. Templin lived for 148 days ... under the mistaken impression that he was dying of metastatic brain cancer," he added.

Templing was awarded $500 per day for the initial period of pain and distress, and $300 for the later period, ending in the new set of tests.

The hospital was also ordered to foot the bill of the ?last? birthday party and the pre-arranged funeral.

Total amount awarded: $59,820. News that you?re not dying of brain cancer after all -- we imagine that is probably priceless.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/man-awarded-59k-incorrect-death-diagnosis-181616160.html

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