What should you do when you are told you received a radiation overdose?

Do not accept a Kentucky hospital's assessment of your radiation overdose as slight, harmless, or purely accidental.

If you have gone through radiotherapy or a CT-scan in a Kentucky hospital, you may have been exposed to a radiation overdose. A radiation overdose can cause symptoms such as hair loss, skin redness, nausea and vomiting. Apart from the distressing and painful nature of these reactions, excessive radiation can also lead to higher cancer risk, bone and muscle tissue loss and organ damage.

Do you know what caused your Kentucky radiation overdose?

Radiation overdose can happen because of software problems, faulty calibration or human carelessness. Part of the problem may be the lack of training of technicians and medical physicists. Some operators have even been known to do up to 30 scans on a child, when a maximum of 4 is the norm, just to increase the image's clarity. Other times, hospital workers and physicians may identify the wrong body part to receive radiation and needlessly expose a patient to therapy.

Calibration errors or lack of feedback procedures allow technicians to submit unsuspecting patients to excessive dose of radiation over and over again. In some cases, a software problem is at the source of the malfunction. Other times, its simple negligence on behalf of the doctor or nurse technician in radiating the wrong side or applying too many treatments.

The widespread use of CT-scans also increases the risks of excessive radiation. Each CT-scan exposes patients to the equivalence of 400 chest X-ray doses. Keeping track of the number of scans that one patient has been submitted to is a challenge, but is extremely important.

Treatment for Radiation Overdose

Depending on the amount of radiation absorbed by the body, the symptoms and healing strategy for a radiation overdose will be different. Several steps are part of the treatment:

• Complete external decontamination;
• Bone marrow treatment;
• Reduction of internal contamination;
• Treatments of other side effects.

The possible increased long-term cancer risk depends on many factors; the excess amount of radiation and the age and metabolism of the patient are things to consider. Children and the elderly are sometimes more susceptible to cancer risk aggravation.

Kentucky hospitals and radiologists have a responsibility to expose patients to as little radiation as possible. Most "accidental" overdoses happen when hospitals, radiologists and technicians do not enforce or follow widely known and accepted procedures, and leave the operation of highly sophisticated machinery to insufficiently trained staff.

You need experienced, aggressive help after a radiation overdose

In most radiation overdose cases, the radiology department staff will not readily come forward to take responsibility for what happened. They have a lot to lose, and it can take a skilled investigator and determined law firm to find out what really happened in your case.

An experienced medical mistake law firm like Gray and White Law can bring you the help you need if you or someone you love has been subjected to unacceptably excessive radiation. With our investigative skills and our experience and focus on medical errors, we are determined to obtain the highest possible compensation for radiation overdose victims.

Please call us today for a FREE CONSULTATION at toll free (800) 634-8767 or locally at (502) 210-8942 or fill out our online contact form.

Gray and White Law work with clients in all Kentucky counties including:  Jefferson, Bullitt, Fayette, Daviess, Livingston, Warren, Shelby, Meade, Boone, Gallatin, Campbell, Oldham, Spencer, Barren, McCracken, Carroll, Henry and Hardin. 

In addition they handle cases in most Kentucky cities including: Louisville, Elizabethtown, Owensboro, Paducah, Bowling Green, Covington, Florence, Frankfort, Lexington, Elizabethton, Shelbyville, Taylorsville, Shepherdsville, Brooks, Radcliff, Ft. Knox, Carrolton, Newport, Bardstown, and La Grange.