Fla. Woman Wins $10 Million Malpractice Verdict

A Florida jury granted a woman a $10.3 million verdict last week, agreeing that an emergency room doctor’s negligence caused her husband’s premature death.

Nadine Raphael said Dr. James Shecter did not administer critical medicine when her 73-year-old husband Harvey arrived at Palms West Hospital on April 10, 2003, clearly suffering a heart attack, said her attorney Scott Henratty.

Another doctor ultimately gave him an anti-clotting drug, but Henratty said there’s a window of about two hours of when the medication has to be administered. Raphael didn’t receive the medicine until more than two hours after he arrived.

Raphael received a heart transplant in 2006, but developed an infection and died a month later.

Shecter’s attorney Michael Mittelmark said he plans to appeal.

Palms West reached a confidential out of court settlement with Nadine Raphael before the trial.

Information from: The Palm Beach Post, http://www.pbpost.com