I watched a documentary called "Hot Coffee", available on Netflix. Sure enough as it began, it stated that most people have assumptions about the McDonald's hot coffee case, where a woman sued after spilling coffee on herself. I was expecting a documentary about how frivolous lawsuits have made it difficult for people like myself to seek justice in the system, but then as I watched I began to hear the real story.
Stella Liebeck was not even driving as many news reports, reported incorrectly. She was not even in a moving car. Her grandchild parked them and she was preparing to put cream and sugar into her coffee, then the lid popped off and the coffee spilled, leaving her with extremely severe burns, at least of the third degree.
The temperature of McDonald's coffee at that time, now it is at least 10 degrees lower, was to be 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit... to serve to customers. Those temperatures will easily cause second degree burns "if you're lucky" a doctor explains, in the movie.
Poor Stella at 79 had to have extensive skin grafts, and her doctors did not think that she was going to survive at first. If you have a strong stomach, Google for the pictures, and you can see just how much of her skin was damaged. Typically, even at a younger age, if you have severe enough burns on enough of your body, prognoses are not good.
Then it went on to explain about how after that case businesses fueled and funded politicians to put caps on damages people can seek. Caps on the time.
When I was first injured, it was a car accident, December 19th, 2010, I wasn't even supposed to work. One of the coworkers I considered a friend, I was covering for her, because she begged for the day off, and the 'me of then' gave in. Ironically my injury has made me had to be a stronger person to speak up for my rights, even if it has taken years.
Another friend was driving me to work. Let's call him Ned. He had an old 2-door jeep-like vehicle, reminding me of the Sidekick my mother drove when I was a kid, or those cars you see people drive in Africa who are on safari or something. It had a strange front bumper, just a plain steel bar set inches in front of the vehicle.
It was raining, as it often does in winter in Los Angeles. We were going off the 405, and he was going 45mph when he went for the Sherman Way exit, a very sharply curved exit, and I knew that it was too fast. He braked, but the tires locked and we hydroplaned into the guard-railing, thankfully, or maybe not given how off-road his vehicle was, it did its job, and we bounced back. On the leather seat I was slid down and to the right out of my seatbelt from the sheer force.
He asked if I was okay as I picked myself up from the floorboards, having to unbuckle and rebuckle the seatbelt. I said that I was fine, and we continued to my work. At my work, we found the passenger side of his bumper was bent to around a 45 degree angle, actually hitting his car. He asked again if I was alright, and I said I felt fine.
It was not until 30 minutes later that the pain hit me, and I had to call around for someone to take me to my doctor who was also an urgent care center. (Guess who came to fill in for me? My friend who needed the day off, haha.) When I had received my medical insurance though work, they had assigned me a doctor who was in southern Los Angeles, and at the time I lived in northern San Fernando Valley (this would be around 2 hours away for those not familiar with L.A.), and worked in the middle. I was baffled as to why they would assign me a doctor so far away. With a bad sinus infection I called them, and changed it to Valley Urgent Care at 9346 Corbin Ave in Northridge, CA 91324, (feel free to write hate mail, if you'd like.) it was mere minutes from my home! I have Dr. Surinder P Puri to thank for a quick and speedy recovery from that sinus infection. The staff was polite, I was seen quickly, treated politely, and I had a wonderful experience. Later when I went for a physical, just to check to make sure I was healthy given my bad family health history, again, a great experience.
When I went in for my back, I had no idea, but where I hurt the most, my lower back, the lumbar, they called off for x-rays, but of my mid and upper back only, they excluded my lower lumbar back. I was soon to discover how horribly incompetent this place was. I was obviously in severe pain, but my x-rays looked alright (probably because they were of parts of my back that are still perfectly fine), so he signed me off work for 2 weeks. When I was still hurting after 2 weeks, returned to work, I went back to visit him. They had given me Vicodin at first, but it was not helping the pain, so they tried Vicodin ES, which is 50% stronger. He suggested another week off from work, and so I took off another week. It was not until late in February that I finally got an MRI.
The MRI showed that I had herniated (slipped) discs, which they told me but it showed an extra spinal disc, which I was not told by anyone at Valley Urgent Care. Or about my lumbar spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal), lumbar lordosis (a severe curvature of the spine), anterolisthesis (vertebrae slip forward upon one another, which with herniations going backwards makes it worse), facet arthropathy (facets are the joints between and behind adjacent vertebrae, and mine were and are in bad shape in my lower back, making bending difficult, but adding to the lack of space in my spinal canal). There was also so much more. The severity of the lumbar lordosis was not truly seen until September when I went out of my HMO and into my PPO to see a back specialist, I called for my x-rays only to find Dr. Puri hadn't ordered any for my lower back. The first x-rays of my lower back brought my lordosis from mild to severe. This could only be seen by standing x-rays.
Dr. Puri's care began to become horrible as I was working with very severe injuries, and I was completely unaware. Had we known my lordosis was so bad, and that I had an extra spinal disc, I am sure that my work habits would have been changed. One day I was crouching to open a crate from a shipment we had just received in the pharmacy for an order a patient had, and I felt a bubbling sensation in my back before what felt like acid being poured deep within. I screamed and fell to the floor. This was in late January and the patient I was helping said, "That sounds like a slipped disc."
Paramedics had to take me from the store. After a week I was back working, and gritting my teeth all day doing it. Once we closed I would cry from the pain. I finally began to fall apart in front of customers, and my manager began to act vengefully upon me, giving me work that was not my work, giving me duties that were against the doctor's note I had to return to work with limitations. (She is now very well known throughout San Fernando Valley CVS's and no one ever wants to work there if anyone is sick. But, Daniella has been though a lot, although it does not excuse taking her anger and frustration out on others.)
(9/14 update-- all of the original staff has quit and gone to other stores or just quit CVS completely. She can't find regular staff to stay.)
(9/14 update-- all of the original staff has quit and gone to other stores or just quit CVS completely. She can't find regular staff to stay.)
Finally one day she yelled at me not to return to work until I was better. (As I am still not better, she has asked about me a few times to other people, because I was the "lead pharmacy tech" for the evening. Frankly I was a doormat, and I did more work than the morning lead tech, but did not mind at the time because I cared for the patients I was helping so much.)
Then I had to get disability. CVS refused to pay me anything, but they had to pay me a minimum of $25 a week, which got taxed down to $18 something (seriously). And then the state. Dr. Puri's office charged me $20 per page per form to be filled out, and I was frustrated that they would sign me disabled for a week, when I hadn't even started physical therapy yet! The day that they made me pay $20 for 3 days of disability, (which was $225 a week), I changed doctors.
Little did I know that the medical group had a huge infrastructure. I began to see Dr. Reginald Coates, who was and is a fantastic doctor. The only bad thing that occurred was that in the computer, he saw that there was an x-ray of my entire back, including 'lower back' and that there was nothing remarkable. There was a straight out lie in my medical record for when I went to see him. So when I was finished with physical therapy and then regressed, he was baffled and said he was unwilling to sign me off for more disability.
After I saw the back doctor, I later saw Dr. Coates and explained how severe my lordosis is, and he felt very bad, but I assured him it was entirely Dr. Puri and Valley Urgent Care's fault. Then I lost my private insurance, and had to get government help, but I could only qualify for ACE of Ventura county due to my lack of children, or being federally disabled.
I realize now as I am pursuing a lawsuit against a doctor who gave me a faulty epidural that I should have sued Dr. Puri, but I had no idea about the statute of limitations or of the legal system, and at that time I didn't speak up for myself as much as I do now, because I now must. It is way too late now though. Also as I face suing the doctor who injected me with, God only know what, I will be limited to $250,000, which is a lot of money, but I will have to pay 25-40% lawyer, 50k in back-owed medical bills, and $100,000, in the best case, left to compensate me for the rest of my life. I will fall down at times I do not know, perhaps further getting injured. I may have incontinence at times I do not know, being humiliated. I will probably never regain feeling in certain parts of my legs.
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