Hospital to Pay Surgeon $7M After Falling Off Rolling Stool

A jury recently sided with a Georgia surgeon who sued the medical center where he fell off a rolling stool in the OR.That hospital must now pay $7 million for the career-ending accident.

According to Outpatient Surgery, in 2010, Dr. Mark A. Corbitt, MD had completed an emergency appendectomy at South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, Ga, when he attempted to sit down on a rolling stool to chart. Dr. Corbitt told the court the stool "shot out from underneath" him, causing him to fall back and strike his head "violently."

After the accident, Dr. Corbitt suffered four seizures and developed “debilitating migraine headaches”. He was later diagnosed with “permanent and irreversible trauma-induced epilepsy”. As a result, he was forced to surrender his medical license and close his thriving medical practice.

Although the hospital argued that the accident was due to Dr. Corbitt’s failure to look at the stool before sitting on it, Dr. Corbitt’s lawyers insisted that the stool was "wholly unsafe and unsuitable for use on the hard, slick flooring surfaces" of the hospital's ORs.

They cited a surgical technician who worked at the hospital and had complained that the same type of stool would "come out from under you" when sitting down. The hospital had simply advised that employee to "hook her foot around the stool when sitting on it." No attempts were made to replace the stools with a safer alternative.

Expert testimony also revealed that the wheels on the stool were more suitable for carpeted floors and were 100 times more likely to roll out from under a user on the slick OR flooring.

A spokesperson for the hospital told Outpatient Surgery they are considering whether they will appeal the verdict, "While we respect the jury's verdict, SGMC is disappointed that the jury didn't accept our explanation of the incident.”

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