A Sangamon County jury awarded $38.4 million to a former HSHS St. John’s Hospital employee who was injured when a defective operating room boom collapsed on her, finding the medical equipment manufacturer to be liable.
The several-hundred-pound boom, used for docking medical equipment on a swivel arm, injured Stacey Brown to the point of requiring two shoulder surgeries. She can’t use her right hand and requires the use of a cane. She said her neck and right ankle still have issues.
The jury returned the verdict in early May, almost two and a half years after Brown first filed the case against the manufacturer, claiming defective equipment, in December 2023. The jury awarded $33.8 million in punitive damages to Brown along with $4.6 million in compensatory damages to Brown and her husband, Roger.
Brown, a Macoupin County resident and former surgical technologist, was alone in an operating room at St. John’s a little before 9 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2022. She was preparing for an early morning surgery when the overhead TruPort boom collapsed on her, its metal extension pinning her right foot to the floor.
Brown told Illinois Times it was initially like any other night. She had done countless preps of operating rooms by herself without any issue.
“Wherever the bed is in the (operating room), you have to make sure that the boom is positioned right for the cords, because your equipment and the cords are not very long,” Brown said. “I didn’t even move that boom a half inch and… that was all. It hit me so hard and fast, I was in shock. I was in pain and I couldn’t get up.”
Years later, she still can’t make a fist with her right hand or use it much.
“See, my hand is just frozen,” Brown showed a reporter. “I’ve been a nurse since 1979… I loved what I did. I love taking care of people, and that’s what’s kind of hard for me now. I can’t do that anymore. So, I just don’t know what I’m going to do except for driving my family crazy.”
Erica Slater of Missouri-based law firm Gunn-Slater, which represented Brown, told Illinois Times the defect that injured Brown stemmed from Hill-Rom, the medical boom company, installing the equipment with bolts that were much shorter than the length required by design.
“Twenty millimeters is what they were installed with and 35 millimeters is what the design called for, so it’s a pretty sizable difference,” Slater said. “Once Stacey’s accident happened, they then inspected all the other booms that were at St. John’s.”
Slater said of the 31 booms installed at the hospital, five had the defect. She said the fix was simple and recalls were sent out.
“The fix is basically disassembling the load-bearing connection and changing the bolts, and then they’re fine,” she said. “At St. John’s they quickly changed out those bolt sizes, so the ones that are hanging at St. John’s should (now) be correct. Then after Stacey’s accident, (the manufacturer) initiated a worldwide retrofit, but like any recall or retrofit, it’s only as good as the number of people that responded.”
Hill-Rom, for its part, admitted legal liability in a May 6 court filing.
“During the manufacture of the TruPort boom, a manufacturing error occurred in which certain load bearing bolts installed in the TruPort boom were too short,” the filing reads. “As a result of this error, the TruPort boom partially separated and fell from the ceiling while being operated by plaintiff, Stacey Brown, and she was injured. Hill-Rom has admitted liability as the TruPort Boom was an unreasonably dangerous product at the time it left Hill-Rom’s control, rendering Hill-Rom solely at fault for this incident.”
Slater said the admission was a legal move to potentially separate the case into two stages of compensatory damages and punitive damages.
“It was very clear to us that (the defendants) were using that admission of liability to gain an advantage at trial and allow the jury to give the compensatory amount without being poisoned, if you will, by the punitive evidence,” Slater said. “(The defense was) very hesitant to finally make that admission that their product was unreasonably dangerous, but they had to … it’s a legal admission and it’s a pretty serious one.”
Brown said it’s distressing to think about how the consequences of the defect could have been much more severe.
“It upset me because it might have happened to me, but what if it happened to a patient or a doctor or something? It could have killed somebody, (if) they were unconscious and then boom. That’s the most upsetting,” she said.
Baxter International, which owns Hill-Rom, is based in suburban Deerfield, north of Chicago. The healthcare equipment company wrote to Illinois Times that it intends to appeal the decision.
“We strongly disagree with the verdict and many of the statements in the press release issued by the plaintiff’s attorney and intend to vigorously appeal. This case concerns an injury resulting from a product installed in 2013 and was an isolated incident. Patient and caregiver safety is our priority. In line with our robust safety processes, we took immediate action to resolve the issue after learning of the incident involving the plaintiff in January 2022,” the entire statement reads.
In 2021, two publicly traded Midwest medical equipment companies merged when Baxter International bought Hill-Rom. The deal closed in December 2021, a month before Brown was injured. In the years since the merger, Baxter International’s Nasdaq Stock Market value has cratered.
