Darling V. Charleston Community Hospital Case Summary

Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital
Background. Dorrence Darling II, at eighteen years old student who broke his right leg playing college football. Darling II was taken to the emergency room at Charleston Community Memorial Hospital for medical attention and treatment. Charleston Community Memeorial Hospital was a “rural, fifty-bed hospital in downstate Illinois” (Weit, p.399). Dr. John R. Alexander, the emergency room physician, treated Dorrence by applying traction and placing his leg in a cast. Shortly after the cast dried, “Dorrence began experiencing pain in his toes, which became swollen and discolored and later cold and insensitive. On several occasions thereafter, Alexander made slight modifications to the cast including notching it around Dorrence’s toes and then splitting the sides with a saw, cutting his leg in the process” (Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hosp. Case Brief, n.d.). The assisting nurses failed to perform their job and follow hospital procedures by monitoring Dorrence for changes in the color, temperature, and movement of his toes, as well as circulation rotation, and reporting any changes to

The overall issue of this case was to determine if a hospital could be liable for the negligence of its staff. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital indeed breached the standard of care. After the ruling, the court of appeals confirmed this judgment, and the Supreme Court of Illinois granted review on the issue to determine whether or not a hospital could be held liable for the negligence of its staff, which was affirmed. A person goes to a hospital or medical entity for treatment and expects to be treated. In this case, the negligence of the doctor’s procedures and the lack of follow-up care of the nurses resulted in negligence of care by hospital staff. The evidence and basis of this case proved to be an “open and shut case” due to the loss of a man’s leg for the lack of sufficient and adequate