Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

PHYSICIAN LOSES $19.25M JUDGMENT

A Monmouth County jury earlier this week ordered an obstetrician to pay $23 million to a Freehold boy who was severely disabled at his birth at Riverview Medical Center, according to today’s Asbury Park Press.

The hospital is not identified as defendant in the article, nor in one that appears in the Star-Ledger.

The $23 million sum includes a $19.25 million judgment against the Dr. Aravind Palav as well as interest, the Press reports.

Brandon Kowalski was born with cerebral palsy and cortical blindness, his mother, Bonnie Kowalski, told the Press.

From the story:

Kowalski was 40 when she was taken to Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank on Sept. 11, 1997, on the advice of her obstetrician, Dr. Aravind Palav, after she complained of abdominal pain 30 weeks into her pregnancy.

When she arrived at the hospital, Palav suspected she was suffering from appendicitis and enlisted the aid of a general surgeon to perform an appendectomy, according to court documents. They moved forward to remove the appendix, but found the organ was normal. Instead the doctors found 3.5 liters of blood — half the blood volume of the average woman — in her abdomen.

The nurse assigned to take care of the mother repeatedly told Palav that she believed the baby was in distress because of readings from a fetal monitor, but the doctor moved forward despite her objections, according to Kowalski’s attorney, Dennis A. Drazin. Drazin and his brother, Brian D. Drazin, were co-counsel in the lawsuit.

The jury heard testimony from the nurse that she went over the doctor’s head and alerted her charge nurse to her concerns, and when the charge nurse did not confront the doctor she went to the hospital’s nursing supervisor insisting that an emergency Cesarean section was necessary to save the baby, Brian Drazin said.

An hour and 40 minutes after the operation began, a C-section was ultimately performed, Brian Drazin said. Kowalski’s son, Brandon, had no muscle tone and required resuscitation intense neo-natal care, he said. Because of oxygen deprivation, he suffered a intra-ventricular hemorrhage leading to severe brain damage and surgeries to place a permanent shunt in his head to remove fluid, he said.

In the lawsuit, Kowalski claimed Palav did not run proper tests to evaluate her severe abdominal pain, ignored the nurse’s warnings and did not recognize the abnormalities on the fetal monitoring strips. In addition, once the operation began and the large quantity of blood discovered, Palav failed to promptly deliver the baby by C-section, Kowalski contended.

A doctor, who testified at the five-week trial, said the boy would have been born without any problems if he was delivered sooner, and told the jury all the damage was done during the last half-hour before he was born.

Email this story

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
Partyline
THEY’RE BACK!
Ospreys returned to the skies over Red Bank this week for the first time since they migrated to warmer climes in late fall. With temperature ...
SPRING IS SPRUNG
RED BANK: Spring 2024 arrives on the Greater Red Bank Green with the vernal equinox at 11:06 p.m. Tuesday.
RED BANK’S FINEST – AND NEWEST
Red Bank Police Officer Eliot Ramos was sworn in as the force’s newest patrolman Thursday, and if you’re doing a double take thinkin ...
EASTER EGG MAYHEM AT THE PARK
An errant whistle spurred an unexpectedly early start to the Spring Egg Hunt on Sunday, which had been scheduled to begin at eggsactly 11am ...
PRESEASON DOCKWORK
RED BANK: With winter winding down, marina gets ready for boating season with some dockwork on our beautiful Navesink River.
CORNED BEEF AND DISCO FRIES?
It’s Friday, and smart Lent-observing Leprechauns know the pot of gold at the end of Red Bank’s rainbow is actually the deliciou ...
SURFBOARD DITCHED
It’s a violation of etiquette in surfing to ditch your board.  (it could hit another surfer and hurt them). But someone appears to ha ...
ELSIE, TAKE ME WITH YOU!
Soaked by pouring rain with the temperature hovering in the low 40’s, this sign in the window of Elsie’s Subs on Monmouth Street ...
WALK THIS WAY
PARTYLINE: Before-and-afters of a sidewalk cleanup on West Street.
SOGGY NOTION
RED BANK: Breezeway sculpture captured the mood downtown as heavy rains fell Saturday morning.
HOME DELIVERY
RED BANK: After a subdivision, an instant house rises on a new Catherine Street lot.
COMMUNITY PROFILES
For Black History Month, Red Bank's Community Engagement and Equity Advisory Committee has been running a series of local profiles on Facebo ...
HEARTY FAREWELL FOR HARDY
RED BANK: Council to honor DPU supervisor Rich Hardy, who retired recently after almost 39 years of keeping things running.
HOMEBOUND? READ ON…
RED BANK: Can't get to the public library? It's now offering free delivery and pickups for homebound borough residents.
TAMING A BEAST OF A WEEK
RED BANK: After the second snowfall of the week, a borough family finds the perfect use for it – a Godzilla snow sculpture.
RED BANK: LIBRARY CLOSED, BUT THE HILL’S OPEN
RED BANK: Though the library was closed by a snowstorm, kids got to enjoy the riverfront property's steep slope Tuesday.
LIGHT(HOUSE) MAKEOVER
This year, getting ready for spring means a midwinter makeover for Strollo's Lighthouse in Red Bank.
TODAY: LOCAL PUPPY COMPETES ON ANIMAL PLANET’S “PUPPY BOWL”
Red Bank’s very own rescue puppy, Biscuit, is set to compete in Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl this Sunday, February 11, at 2 PM. Th ...
WHAT? NO redbankgreen NEWSLETTER?
Apologies to redbankgreen newsletter subscribers: the daily email hasn’t gone out for two days because of technical issues.
RED BANK: TIRED OF SKEETERS?
RED BANK: Tired of mosquito bites every summer? Monmouth County has a free program to help eliminate skeeter breeding grounds.