Young man who was in a coma after drinking compensated milkshake at 100,000 euros

A marta Pérez's family, a young man who suffered brain damage after drinking a milkshake, will receive a compensation of 100,000 euros, reports to Telecinco.

A Court of Valencia acknowledged that there was a failure that culminated in the worsening state of Marta's health, but also recognized errors that were not directly responsible for the health team that attended her. Thus, despite approving compensation, he established a lower value than the one that was requested by the young woman’s family.

What happened?

The case, remember, dates back to September 28, 2022 when Marta ingested a shake with pistachio, food to which she was allergic. The young woman went to the hospital and immediately indicated what her situation would be. However, nurses who attended her in this first phase did not correctly transmit the situation to doctors, ignoring the issue of allergy. 

So the doctor eventually diagnosed her with acute tonsillitis and prescribed her a corticosteroid, sending her home. An hour later, the young woman returned to the center in critical, cyanotic and severe respiratory distress. He suffered anaphylactic shock and a cardiorespiratory arrest lasting about 10 minutes. The young woman went into a coma and eventually suffered severe permanent brain damage.

What was said in court

In court, the defense report, prepared by the Health Services Inspection, argued that the symptoms during the first consultation were fully compatible with tonsillitis and that the respiratory crisis arose later and unexpectedly.

The charge, in turn, denounced a flagrant medical violation , since an adequate interview was not conducted on the patient's medical history and allergies, having criticized the diagnosis of tonsillitis without fever due to lack of clinical logic.

However, the expert report prepared by an internal medicine specialist confirmed that the initial medical history of the young woman was “insufficient and deficient”. In this case, it was pointed out that a computer system problem was involved since the young woman had only been registered for two years in the Valencia Health System and there were no allergic incidents in her history or her previous diagnosis of asthma. It would be a failure in the transfer of your data from your former health center to the current one, thus withdrawing some guilt to medical practice.

However, on the other hand, it was also criticised that Marta had emergency medication for cases of severe allergies, which had been ignored.

Compensation

Thus, and recognizing that there were mishaps in Marta's diagnosis, the court decreed that the family should be compensated at EUR 100,000, a value well below that of more than 4 million that were requested by the family.

The judicial decision states that the medical team, for various reasons, missed an opportunity to make a correct diagnosis, not assigning it direct blame. 

The compensation established refers to emotional suffering resulting from this missed opportunity and not to the direct physical consequences.