ARLINGTON, Va. - A man has “near quadriplegia” after two Kaiser doctors delayed treating a hematoma in his neck, he claims in Arlington County Circuit Court.

     George K. Chacko sued Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, P.C. and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., as the employer of the two doctors involved, for $2 million.

     According to the lawsuit, a Kaiser surgeon removed a disk from Chacko’s neck, fused two cervical vertebrae together and sent him home that same day.

     Two days later, Chacko went to the emergency room at non-party Virginia Hospital Center “with complaints of neck swelling and weakness in all four extremities. A CT scan demonstrated a hematoma within the right anterior aspect of plaintiff’s neck,” the complaint states.

     Nonetheless, the only treatment Chacko received for five days was IV steroids, according to the complaint.

     Four days after the operation, “an MRI was ordered, which demonstrated severe C4-C6 spinal canal narrowing with marked spinal cord flattening, as well as suspicion of an epidural hematoma as the cause,” the complaint states.

     The hematoma was noted again the next day, according to the complaint.

     Two days after that, and a full week after the original operation, surgery was done to evacuate the hematoma.

     Chacko “suffered severe and permanent personal injury when his epidural hematoma was permitted to progress without surgical intervention. Those injuries include near quadriplegia, severe quadriparesis, permanent loss of partial function in each of his limbs, physical pain of subsequent rehabilitation and emotional trauma,” the complaint states.

     In addition to $2 million, George Chacko seeks a jury trial. He is represented by Jason W. Fernandez of Greenberg & Bederman in Silver Spring, Md.