The heartbroken family of a promising high school graduate who died in agony after getting stitches for an arm injury is suing the surgeon they claim made a fatal error.
Ethan Cantrell, 18, passed away on August 20, 2024, five days after he was treated for a wound in his arm sustained after he fell on a branch while chopping wood.
The high school football star was initially treated at the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis, western Oregon, where a surgeon closed the wound.
However, the doctor allegedly failed to remove pine needles and moss that were lodged inside the cut, according to a $100 million lawsuit filed by his family.
Medics also failed to perform CT scans, which allegedly could have shown the deadly debris lodged inside his wound, and did not administer the full range of antibiotics which could have saved his life, the legal filing claims.
Cantrell suffered five days of unbearable pain, including a raging fever sparked by fast-spreading bacteria which caused his arm to double in size as it swelled.
Surgeons at a second hospital scrambled to save him by amputating the limb from his shoulder, but he passed away after five days of agony, according to the lawsuit seen by Oregon Live.
‘It’s just a sad, sad case,’ Brent Barton, the lawyer representing Cantrell’s estate, told the outlet.
Must have been done at PRMC Tidal Health.
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