The family of a 13-year-old North Dakota girl has filed a federal lawsuit against the Mayo Clinic and two orthopedic surgeons, alleging they permanently paralyzed the girl after failing to stabilize her spine during surgery.
According to the lawsuit filed by Ashley Barton, the girl’s mother, Mayo Clinic, Dr. Peter Rose and Dr. Mohammed Karim, both physicians at the Rochester, Minn., clinic, owe the family an amount “far exceeding $75,000.” The family, from Grand Forks, N.D., is accusing the defendants of medical malpractice and negligent nondisclosure. The suit was filed Jan. 6 in U.S. District Court.
Mayo did not respond to a request for comment.
The 13-year-old girl “walked into Mayo Clinic but rolled out in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down” after a three-stage surgery in February 2024, the lawsuit says.
During a routine softball health check, the teenager was diagnosed with scoliosis after a tumor that caused her spine to curve was discovered. In October 2023, Rose recommended three procedures to first remove the intraspinal portion of the tumor, then remove the remainder of the tumor, and finally to correct the girl’s scoliosis.
Rose’s plan put the girl “at a high risk for spinal instability because of the nature of her spinal abnormality”; however, Rose never documented nor implemented a plan to protect her spinal cord and stabilize her thoracolumbar region, the lawsuit alleges.
Because Rose failed to stabilize the girl’s spine during the first two stages of the surgery, the lawsuit alleges that he breached the standard of care, which required him to recognize the instability of her spine and protect her spinal cord from injury related to instability. The lawsuit also accuses the Mayo doctors, with whom Rose consulted, of violating the standard of care by not recommending that Rose create a plan to stabilize the girl’s spine.
After the second stage of the surgery on Feb. 10, 2024, the girl began sitting at the edge of her bed when she “felt a pop” and collapsed, the lawsuit says. The girl then lost all feeling in her legs.
The same day, the girl’s mother advocated for a CT scan of her spine, which revealed “new disc space widening between the T11 and T12 vertebrae” and a new disruption in the girl’s spinal alignment. According to the lawsuit, the CT scan’s findings were consistent with acute spinal instability.
Her “neuropathic pain, urinary incontinence, loss of sensation and strength, were consistent with a transient paraparesis … directly caused by the post-surgical instability of her spine that Dr. Rose had failed to address,” the lawsuit alleges.
The following day, Rose charted: “She had a difficult day yesterday. She was doing great, but then felt a pop and there was concern about some potential dysesthetic pain arising in her lower extremities in the setting of a normal motor examination. … I was unfortunately not in the area, but was in full communication. We got a CT scan that I have had a chance to personally review, and I am not concerned about the findings.”
The 13-year-old did not move out of the bed Feb. 11, 2024, due to “significant fear,” one resident charted.
On Feb. 12, 2024, the girl made it to the edge of the bed when “everything from her waist down went numb, she had a burning sensation in her lower extremities, and she was unable to move her legs,” the lawsuit says. Rose visited the girl that afternoon and charted, “this is all very unusual,” noting that the procedure generally doesn’t “impart any gross instability in the spine.”
Rose left for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons annual meeting, so Karim agreed to help out, the lawsuit said. Karim ordered an MRI later on Feb. 12, revealing critical abnormalities in the girl’s spine consistent with significant acute spinal cord injury.
At 11 p.m. Feb. 12, Karim proceeded with an emergency surgery. He observed gapping and mobility of part of the spine and a “disrupted facet joint capsule.” He also noted the teenager was not completely paraplegic at the time of the surgery.
“Despite recognizing her unstable spinal condition during surgery, Dr. Karim failed to surgically stabilize (the girl’s) spine through placement of instrumentation or other surgical immobilization, a critical step that the standard of care required to prevent further neurological deterioration after surgery,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit alleges that the doctors’ violations of the standard of care caused the girl to suffer complete paralysis in the lower half of her body, “which is permanent and without expectation of meaningful recovery in the future.”
In addition to lifelong financial burdens, the lawsuit alleges, the injury has altered the girl’s “privacy and dignity,” “stripping her of independence, mobility and dignity.”
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