The way it went down, apparently, was that the nurse giving the medicine was reaching for "Hep Lock" (which is a diluted form of the medication); however, she instead grabbed the bottle labeled "Heparin" (see below). So, instead of giving 10 Units ("Hep Lock"), the dosage given was 10,000 Units ("Heparin").
The lawsuit being filed by Quaid "alleges Baxter Healthcare failed to put clear labels on vials of Heparin which caused the mix-up".
Clear labels? Hmmm... interesting. Because to the untrained eye, it might look like the Heparin vile is dark blue, while the Hep-Lock vile is light blue. Also, the word "Heparin" seems to have an "R" in it, missing from the dangerously similar "Hep-Lock". And, even upon closer inspection, they are spelled differently altogether (lookie there, the Heparin vile has the number "10,000 Units" written right on it... Hmm, I wonder what THAT could mean?).
Of course, the hospital involved has apologized on behalf of its staff, suggesting that "human error" was the cause. Still, Baxter is the party being sued. Skeptics, rest assured, the Quaids have assured us that this is "not at all about the money."
As such, I would like to suggest the following lawsuits:
Lawsuit #1: The Case of The People vs. The Color Black
For quite a long time now, many people have been reading up on and instilling their faith in the wrong religion! It was just a few days ago when it was brought to my attention that the paperback covers used for two quite different books look almost IDENTICAL!!! Hazzah, millions of people have been reading the wrong book!
Certainly, upon buying the book, the savvy shopper could have differentiated one from the other by using techniques such as spelling and reading; but, the near-similar spelling and identical cover colors would easily confuse the best of us.
Most notably, though, both covers are black; therefore, it is only fair to sue the color black. This egregious error has led to many souls ending up in hell and many others doing good deeds against their will. We, the people, hereby demand that the color black never be used for covers of books in the same genre.
Lawsuit #2: The Case of The People vs. The British (for inventing English and, so, the phrase "28 Days")
On a larger scale, I would like to act as the Robin Hood of moviegoers who, earlier this decade were duped into going to the wrong movie solely because of deceptive titling.
In the movie world, there are two genres that may come dangerously close, but should never be confused: "Horror" and "Crap". Well, movie aficionados nationwide had to suffer from such a mix up when two studios decided to name their movies with almost identical titles:
- The British horror release "28 Days Later" (a zombie medical thriller)
- The US crap release "28 Days" (a piece of crap)
In this lawsuit, it should be proposed that (1) movies with similar titles should be avoided, if at all possible and/or (2) if similar titles are used, a panel be formed to label the one that is crap so all of us can clearly see (although, my argument is weakened by the mere appearance of the posters above; hard to confuse which poster is the crap flick: one of the posters is red, has a dude walking on the Thames, has a cool nuclear symbol, and has enlarged the words "Exposure," "Infection," "Epidemic," "Evacuation," and "Devastation"... while the other has THAT picture of Sandra Bullock).
And, finally...
Lawsuit #3: The Case of The People vs. God
We have all read the horrific stories of patients going for surgery to amputate a leg (or other body part) only to wake up and find that the wrong leg has been amputated. This is surely beyond fathomable.
Medical mistake? Certainly. Human error? Sure.
I'm going to take this a step beyond the obvious, though...
Given that it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that God created us all; and, given that after closely examining the picture above, you'll note that legs, in general, look so much alike (and are in such close proximity--especially on the same patient) and that anyone could easily mistake the right for the left: they are same length, size, color, and have the same taste and smell.... I make a motion to file the lawsuit "The People vs. God".
In this lawsuit, one would most definitely not be suing for the money. We simply ask our creator to reconsider the layout for our anatomy. It would be fair to request what I call "a triple change": left and right legs (and/or other body parts) should have (1) different colors, (2) different lengths, and (3) variable number of toes.
With the patient under anesthesia, one could easily remember "Right Leg" instead of "Left Leg." But, how could you cut off the wrong leg when the description in the chart reads: "Will plan to amputate the longer leg which is mauve and possesses 13 toes."
I rest my case.
