Confidential Medical Malpractice Recovery for Loss of a Testicle

A cable technician in his twenties received a confidential recovery after an emergency physician missed a time-sensitive testicular injury. While wiring a new home for cable, he slipped from a ladder, and his belt caught on a rung during the fall, trapping one of his testicles. At the emergency department, he reported testicular pain, but the physician did not order a scrotal ultrasound. She ordered imaging of his abdomen and pelvis instead, which could not assess blood flow to the testicles, and discharged him. Over the next 48 hours, his pain worsened, and he returned to the same emergency department. This time, an ultrasound showed no blood flow to his right testicle, and surgeons had to remove it.

To prove malpractice, we had to establish through expert proof that, given the traumatic mechanism of injury and the client’s complaint of testicular pain, the standard of care required an appropriate evaluation of the testicle, including a scrotal ultrasound with Doppler imaging capable of assessing blood flow, and that the failure to perform it cost the client his testicle. We established that a timely ultrasound would have caught the problem while it was still treatable. The damages accounted for his age, whether his fertility had been affected, his medical expenses, lost wages, and other circumstances.