A federal judge this week awarded $60.9 million to a Hialeah couple whose son
suffered severe brain damage when he was born in a Jacksonville Navy hospital
two years ago.
The award is believed to be the largest ever under the Federal Tort Claims Act,
which allows private citizens to sue the federal government for the negligent
conduct of government employees.
The award also may be the last of its kind. A new law passed in Florida in late
2003 caps pain and suffering damages at $1 million. Had Raiza Bravo and Oscar
Rodriguez filed their case under the current law, the verdict would have been
less than $12 million -- about $10 million for medical care and lost wages, and
$1 million for the family's pain and anguish.
But the couple may not see money anytime soon. The government is likely to
appeal the case or renegotiate the settlement, a long process that could take
months or years.
BITTERSWEET VICTORY
'It's like a mix of feelings, it's been sweet and bitter,' the boy's mother,
Raiza Bravo, said Thursday. ``Nobody's going to bring back my son's life.'
Kevin Bravo Rodriguez, now 2, cannot see, speak or swallow. His muscles are
rigid, and he cannot move his arms and legs.
He cannot respond to any stimulus except pain, and doctors say he will not live
past age 21.
Bravo and Kevin's father, Oscar Rodriguez, a Navy serviceman, say doctors waited
too long to perform a cesarean section to deliver their son -- nearly nine hours
after he showed signs of fetal distress and an irregular heartbeat.
HOSPITAL NEGLIGENT
After a 12-day trial that included testimony from a dozen physicians, U.S.
District Judge Jose A. Gonzalez on Wednesday ruled that the doctors and nurses
who attended to Kevin's birth were guilty of negligence.
'This has been emotionally devastating to the family. When someone is waiting
for a baby, they're hopeful, they hope their dreams come true,' said Ervin
Gonzalez, one of the couple's attorneys. ``When Kevin was born, it turned into a
nightmare.'
Doctors say Kevin cannot recognize his mother, but she finds comfort when he
smiles or laughs and sometimes feels he knows her.
A table by the entrance to Bravo's Hialeah apartment holds snapshots of Kevin at
various stages in his life, as an infant, or dressed as a pumpkin or Spider-Man
for Halloween, or Mickey Mouse for his birthday.
NO SIGN OF TROUBLE
One snapshot shows Bravo at a fountain in St. Augustine, beaming and pregnant.
Hers was a healthy pregnancy, and she had no clue anything would go wrong.
'At the time, we were thinking everything was fine,' she said.
But when Bravo went into labor at the Mayport Naval Station obstetric clinic in
Jacksonville on June 10, 2003, she was already past her due date.
Shortly after she arrived, her unborn son had an irregular heartbeat, possibly
due to an infection in the placenta.
As doctors encouraged Bravo to push, Kevin's heart rate dropped, and at one
point his heart stopped altogether.
Gonzalez and Deborah Gander, another attorney for the couple, argued that
doctors not only waited too long to perform a cesarean section but also that the
hospital lacked or did not use equipment or treatments that may have helped
Kevin.
When Kevin's heart stopped, doctors called for an emergency cesarean section. He
was born with no heart rate, no respiration, no muscle tone and no muscle
reflex.
He spent the first 13 minutes of his life without a heartbeat.
Kevin now requires 24-hour care, and at more than two years old, he is at the
developmental stage of a one-month-old.
Bravo searches for flashes of her son's personality, happiness, or pleasure.
Wendy Jacobus, who heads the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's South
District Office in Miami, argued the case for the defense, which tried to
establish that Kevin had had an infection before his mother came to the
hospital, and claimed that one of Bravo's physicians, obstetrician Kenneth
Kushner, was an independent contractor, not a federal employee.
SHATTERED MYTH
One of their lawyers, Gonzalez, has won several large judgments from juries.
They include a $65 million verdict in June against the private Eller Media Co.
for the family of a boy electrocuted at an improperly wired bus shelter in
Miami.
Such a large award from a judge is fairly unusual, he said.
'Normally, you expect this from a jury,' Gonzalez said.
``Jurors understand life and living. There has been a belief that has now been
shattered that trial judges don't understand pain as well as jurors do.'
ONE DAY AT A TIME
Although caring for Kevin is a full-time job, Bravo says she may have another
child some day.
But she still cries a lot when she thinks of her son's tragic birth, and has a
lot of grief to overcome.
'I have to face this first,' she said.
Copyright (c) 2005,
The Miami Herald
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