Class Against Lawsuit Filed Against LA Hospital for Radiation Overdose

One of the 206 patients who received an overdose of radiation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and the company that manufactured the CT scanner.

Trevor Rees, who along with 205 other patients received 8 times more radiation than normal during a CT scan, filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of all the patients who received an overdose.  Rees actually underwent two scans, so he may have received the overdose twice.

Rees claims the high exposure was caused by an error with the machine that had gone undetected for more than a year, and that both the hospital staff and the scanner's manufacturer, General Electric Healthcare, were negligent in conducting the CT scans.

The hospital said the staff had recently reset the machines in an effort to help doctors see blood flow more clearly, however, "a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine," caused the patients to receive 8 times more radiation than they should have.

Rees, along with 40 other patients, claim they lost at least some, if not all of the hair on their heads and eye brows.  Rees is also claiming that the skin on his face and scalp became red and flaky, and that he now faces a higher risk of cancer.

The class action lawsuit seeks general and economic damages for all plaintiffs for the "expense of longer term health monitoring of its effects, and serious physical and emotional damage."

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