My question involves medical malpractice in the state of: Florida.
This is pretty much a mixed bag with two flavors, medical negligence by a nursing assistant and illegal tactics by my employer. Long post is long, but I'll try to be as descriptive as possible.
I work at a job that deals with fire/smoke/water/mold damage. We were doing a fire job on someone's house and I was instructed by the crew chief to clean the contents of the master bathroom. Cleaning a vase, unbeknown to me there was a sharp hole in it, and as I pulled out, it cut a nice chunk of my finger off. Some bloodshed and wrapping the wound later, on the way to the hospital the bosses daughter told me that I had to lie and say I did it at home, and that they would pay the bills sent to my house.
At first I went along with it because I felt extremely pressured, vulnerable, and in shock, but in the next hospital visit I buckled down and told the truth and got my medical records changed. After three weeks of being injured, in severe pain, and waiting, they finally put me on Workers Compensation. The state informed me that they would be fined big time for putting me on WC late.
Now for the medical part. In the ER when the staff member finally got there to treat me, they put a foam compression on there and wrapped my finger EXTREMELY tight, to the point where it was throbbing immediately and proceeded to tell me to keep the dressing on for at least 36 hours. In those 36 hours and in 3 days I was in extreme, throbbing pain, crying my eyes dry without no pain medication prescribed by the hospital. After finally taking the dressing off after the first 36 hours, due to the roughness and tightness of the bandage, my finger was VERY swollen and blistered, as if it were burned over a fire. The worst part of it is, is that the nursing assistant's (not a licensed physician with years of experience or at least a nurse) dressing has damaged the nerves in my finger and I haven't had feeling in it in over a month, and I'm likely to have invasive surgery to repair it, IF it can be repaired.
The hand specialist I was referred to by a second hospital informed me that 36 hours was WAY too long and the dressing was too tight and they were shocked to know how long had it on. I have saved the pictures of my wounds for documentation and am thinking about pursuing a case, if the hand specialist gives me a statement that my damaged nerves is the result of the nursing assistant/hospitals negligent knowledge to treat me.
Do I have a case? More information will be provided if needed. Here are some pictures.
http://i51.tinypic.com/35k49c0.jpg
First picture of my open wound.
http://i56.tinypic.com/1zdb81.jpg
Second picture displaying tight dressing.
http://i54.tinypic.com/r6zk93.jpg
After 36 hours, finger is very swollen, blistered all over, and damaged.
http://i55.tinypic.com/25aopc9.jpg
Close up view of bottom finger, swollen, blistered, etc.
http://i56.tinypic.com/2qs6txg.jpg
Side blister.
http://i51.tinypic.com/2zrp940.jpg
Finger black due to foam compression merging with clotted skin, white due to excessive moisture from bandage.
I used links because I didn't want to enlarge the post even more, also keeps it more organized.

