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Stallworth v. Boren8/20/2002
In 1992, Christian and his family moved to Georgia. Prior to October 1996, Christian did not experience any significant health problems and, in fact, excelled at athletics. He played both football and basketball for his school. His mother pointed out that he was his school's "star player" in both sports. He also played basketball extra-scholastically on a state team and was ranked nationally.
Christian's health problem surfaced on October 10, 1996, when he was in the ninth grade. Christian was attending a Christian camping retreat in Clayton, Georgia, over two hours from his home. Apparently, Christian went swimming and was attempting a somewhat difficult dive when his neck jerked and he heard a pop. Twenty minutes later, he had the worst headache of his life. Christian was also experiencing some weakness, so his coach took him to the emergency room of a local hospital that night. Immediately after speaking with Christian's coach, Christine called Dr. Patricia Glenn (Dr. Glenn), the family doctor. Dr. Glenn recalled being concerned about Christian's head. Later, the school's principal called Christine to inform her that the hospital had released Christian and prescribed him Tylenol, apparently attributing his symptoms to a viral infection. Christian went back to camp.
The next day, Christine picked Christian up at his school as he returned from his retreat. Christine testified that "he didn't look like my Christian. He was kind of dragging his, um, right leg, and he was, um, complaining about his head. And the first thing he said was 'Take me to Egleston.'" Christine took him to see Dr. Glenn. Dr. Glenn directed Christine to immediately take Christian to Crawford Long Hospital for a CT scan. The results revealed that Christian had a blood clot in his brain.
On October 14, 1996, Christian was transferred from Crawford Long, a general community hospital, to Egleston, a pediatric hospital affiliated with Emory University. At Egleston, Christian was placed in the care of Dr. Joseph Petronio (Dr. Petronio), a pediatric neurosurgeon. Dr. Petronio determined that Christian's brain harbored an arterio-venous malformation, or "AVM." He explained that an AVM is:
an abnormal connection between arteries which carry blood from the heart to the brain and veins that carry blood from the brain back to the heart. And typically the classical arterio-venous malformation has what we call a nidus. It has a small tangle of blood vessels and, you know, you can use various terms to describe this. People have talked about bowls of spaghetti or tangles of spaghetti or balls of yarn. And what this is is an abnormal ball of blood vessels. It's not a normal structure. And because of that it is prone to hemorrhage. So --
[Stallworths' attorney]: So a nidus again, Doctor, is what?
[Dr. Petronio]: A nidus is a small tangle of abnormal blood vessels that are typically part of an arterio-venous malformation. The funny thing about arterio-venous malformations in children is that they can have several different forms and they can be quite dynamic. They're actually quite different than adults. In children this nidus can be quite small and can be very difficult to visualize sometimes at all. And AVMs in children can have a big fistulas [(sic)] component where arteries shunt blood directly to veins and not all of the arteries feed into a nidus. There are several -- those are the main anatomic differences in children.
Sometimes in children AVMs expand or grow throughout childhood so that they can start as a relatively small lesion and enlarge, but the major risk . . . is that it can act as a mass. It can act as a structure pushing on a normal brain and therefore
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