A Louisiana jury awarded $18.2 million recently to a 25-year-old woman who was the victim of medical malpractice in 1995. Daphne LeRay, an 18-year-old student at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux at the time of the accident, was riding in the passenger seat of a pickup truck when it was forced off the road and rolled over. LeRay was taken to Terrebone General Medical Center suffering head and neck injuries. The emergency room physician performed a CAT scan of her head, but made only X-rays of her neck, failing to discover it was broken. A cervical safety collar was subsequently taken off.

Two days later, LeRay suffered complete paralysis from the shoulders down. A CAT scan of her neck revealed three broken bones with fragments piercing the woman's spinal cord. LeRay filed suit against the emergency room physician and the attending neurosurgeon for failing to diagnose her injury, which left untreated eventually led to her paralysis. Due to medical malpractice caps in the state, the award will be cut to $10.5 million.