Last updated on April 6th, 2017 at 02:03 pm

Finger caught in child’s school bag led to severe pain and swelling

Ms C was 38 years old and managing director of her own company at the time of the injury.  Her job involved extensive driving around England.  On the day of the incident, Ms C was seeing her son off to school and caught her right ring finger in his school bag as he was going out of the door.  Her finger bent backwards and then got trapped in the door.

As she had a busy day of important meetings, Ms C wasn’t able to attend A & E until the evening, when the triage nurse looked at her bruised and swollen finger and agreed that it was probably broken and needed an x-ray.  However, with the waiting time around 4 – 5 hours and young children to pick up, Ms C decided to leave, grin and bear the pain and return the next morning for an x-ray.

X-rays show no broken bones

When she returned on the following day, the radiologist said she didn’t think the finger was broken, but that there was something there and referred Ms C back to a clinician.  The same triage nurse confirmed, from the x-rays, that the finger wasn’t broken and what was seen on the x-ray was a bony spur (something, she said, lots of people have and think is a break).  She strapped the finger to adjacent fingers and told Ms C to keep it like that for a while and the swelling and bruising would go and the finger back to normal in a couple of weeks.  Ms C questioned whether anything could be wrong with the tendons and was told no.

Ms C kept her finger strapped for 5-6 days, and the bruising and swelling did go down, but her finger remained extremely painful.  She had no grip with her right hand and couldn’t move the ring finger before its first knuckle.  In pain, and worried, she went to see her GP who easily recognised a tendon issue and asked if Ms C had had an ultrasound examination – which she had not.

Tendon injury missed by clinicians

The GP referred her to a hand clinic, and, around 2 months later, Ms C was seen by a plastic surgeon at Northern General Hospital who immediately diagnosed an FDP avulsion injury. The tendon in Ms C’s right ring finger had snapped and retracted back into her hand.  The surgeon told her that the injury should have been dealt with immediately as the delay meant that an operation (which would now need to be a 2 stage operation to a) insert a silicone rod into the finger and b) reconnect the tendon 6 weeks later) was now much more complex and carried a lower chance of success.  In fact he told her that there was only a 50% chance of recovering 50% bend in the tip of her finger and that, if it were him, he would not go through with it due to the risk of chronic pain or chronic arthritis.  Had the operation been carried out immediately it would have been done all in one go, would have been much more successful and Ms C would have recovered in around 6 weeks.  Ms C was told that the whole process, including recovery, would now take around 3 months, and after much consideration and discussion with the surgeon, she decided that she did not want to take the aforementioned risk, and could not take 3 months away from her business.

Injured woman’s life changed

Ms C went back to work after a couple of weeks, still in pain, and unable to drive the long distances she needed to undertake for her business.  Her wellbeing also suffered, as, normally a sporty person, she was unable to continue to play golf or tennis or join in activities with her children.  Without proper grip and with reduced strength in her hand, she was also unable to properly undertake everyday activities and household chores and required help from others.

Graysons secures compensation for medical negligence

Ms C contacted Graysons for help in pursing the hospital for compensation and we took up the case, claiming that the hospital clinicians had breached their duty of care in failing to suspect tendon damage on both visits and failing to undertake appropriate investigation, which should have involved ultrasound investigation.  The hospital accepted and we negotiated a settlement of £75,000 for Ms C.  The amount included damages for:

• pain
• suffering and loss of amenity
• care and assistance
• travel
• loss of earnings
• equipment

If you think that you have not received the proper standard of care from any healthcare professional, please contact our medical negligence experts now for prompt and confidential advice.