Case Story: Recovering Compensation for a Client After Bedsore Injuries

Bed sores are dangerous. Bed sores happen a lot of times when people are bed bound. And the bed sores occur at bony prominences in the body. What that means is the bony part of the body that’s pushing down on the bed that’s causing pressure. That’s where you’re going to get the bed source. Most common types of bed sores on your coxix, which is just on the low back area where your spine is. That bone is pushing down and pushing through the skin and damaging the skin and ultimately will break through. Those wounds can be terrible. They will be life-threatening if it they become stage 4 infected wounds. Another place you’re going to get wounds is on your heels because you’re sitting there all day and your bones are pushing down on the bed. And heel pressure sores also catch my interest. If you get a heel bed sore, it can become infected and it can lead to an amputation. I can think of two cases that come to mind right now with heel bed sores that you may not think it’s much because it’s on the heel, but they were terrible cases.

One, a lady said, “I would go visit my husband every day and everything seemed fine until one day when I took off his socks and I saw that his heels were black. They became infected and it took almost a year for those wounds to heal. But the fact of the matter is they never should have become black. Why did the spouse not know that her husband had these wounds on his heels? Certainly, they’re changing his socks. They need to notify the family member as soon as there’s a bed sore. So, the family member is aware and can keep an eye on it. She shouldn’t have to find out that her husband has a black heel just because she took his socks off fortuitously. Another case involving a heel bed sore.

An example of how dangerous they can be is that we had a gentleman who laid in bed all the time. People didn’t come visit him very often, unfortunately, because his family wasn’t very close in proximity to him. And then they realized when they got a phone call that he was in a dire situation. They didn’t call him when he had his stage 1 or two or three heel pressure sore. They called him when the pressure sore was eating away at his heel and was infected. And by that time, it was too late. He had to have his lower leg amputated because the infection he got on that heel pressure sore. If you’re going to visit your loved one in a nursing home and they’re bed bound, it may not be pleasant, but I would look for bed sores on the coxix area and on the heels. And if you see redness or the beginning of a bed sore, you need to start asking some questions. And if you’re allowed because you have maybe healthcare power of attorney, I would start taking pictures.