A 19-year-old Piedmont College student who was left paralyzed following back surgery more than three years ago was recently awarded an $11.7 million personal injury settlement by a Fulton County jury. Joshua Coleman had sued his spine surgeon, Dr. Stephen B. James, and a group of doctors at North Fulton Medical Center after a routine back surgery left him paralyzed below the waist.

During Coleman’s surgery, a technician hooked up a monitor to his head and feet to track nerve impulses along his spinal chord. While the monitor’s alarm went off during surgery, doctors failed to remove screws and rods installed during the surgery for six hours. Coleman was thus left paralyzed.

While James previously came to an out-of-court settlement with Coleman, neurologist Dr. Frank Puhalovich maintained his innocence and went to court. His attorney, Mary Katherine Greene, claimed that Puhalovich was only in the operating room for ten minutes to make sure that the monitor was properly hooked up by a technician. Puhalovich’s decision to take his chances at trial obviously proved costly when the jury came down with the final verdict.