Earlier this week, a Rhode Island jury awarded the family of a mother who died after receiving negligent care from an emergency room doctor a $21.5 million verdict for personal injuries. Irish immigrant Mary O’Sullivan visited Newark Hospital three times in four days for flu-like symptoms back in 1999 before dying from complications of streptococcus pneumonia some 3½ weeks later, according to the family’s personal injury attorney, Mark B. Decof, in a story in The Providence Journal.

The family’s personal injury lawsuit claimed that the doctor who saw O’Sullivan on the second visit, Dr. Charles L. Stengel, failed to notice and respond to signs of bacterial infection, including toxins which were eating away at her lungs. Stengel sent the 34-year-old O’Sullivan home without antibiotics and told her to see a doctor in five days. According to the story, O’Sullivan had to return to the hospital in less than two days. Another doctor immediately recognized her pneumonia and severe sepsis. Decof said that a hole “the size of a softball” developed in a lung of O’Sullivan, who unfortunately died on March 1, 1999.

The personal injury lawsuit against Stengel and Newport Emergency Physicians Inc., a corporation which contracts emergency doctors to Newark Hospital, alleged that O’Sullivan would have had a full recovery in three to five days if Stengel had noticed and responded to the symptoms of pneumonia. The jury agreed, awarding the family a verdict which could eventually reach up to $28.63 million with interest, according to Decof. Specifically, O’Sullivan’s husband Noel was awarded $9 million for loss of consortium while her three children were given $4 million each for “loss of parental society.” $500,000 also went to O’Sullivan’s estate for pain and suffering. The award did not include economic damages like medical bills or lost wages.

This $21.5 million verdict is the largest jury award in the state since 1999 and surpasses that period’s previous high $18.9 million Pawtucket car accident settlement in 2002, according to Jason M. Scally, a Managing Editor of a weekly Rhode Island law publication that tracks such information. Decof said in the story that he is nearly certain that the jury award is the largest medical malpractice verdict and personal injury verdict in the history of the state.