Amanda Antell  |  November 24, 2015

Category: Legal News

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bair hugger lawsuit A Louisiana man is suing the medical device giant, 3M, for allegedly causing him to suffer unexpected complications after his knee replacement surgery. The lawsuit claims that as a direct result of the use of a Bair Hugger warming system, he experienced severe deep joint infections that had required additional surgeries.

Plaintiff Roy T. underwent knee replacement surgery in February 2013, with a Bair Hugger warming blanket used to keep this body temperature stabilized during the surgery.

The Bair Hugger is a warming device consisting of disposable blanket that is connected to a portable heater and flexible hose, which is placed over patients undergoing surgery. This device keeps patients warm by blowing hot air onto the patients’ bodies, by collecting air under the surgical blanket and around the rest of the room.

Unfortunately, it has recently come under scrunity that the way these forced-air blankets collect hot air cannot adequately filter bacteria collected from the surgery room. This causes the surgical site to be exposed to numerous bacterial cells, leading to numerous severe complications for patients.

Roy was no different, as his surgical site had been introduced bacterial cells and had caused a deep joint infection. According to the Bair Hugger lawsuit, Roy has had to undergo additional surgeries to treat the infected area and continues to suffer from severe and permanent injuries from the infection including limited and severely impaired mobility.

Overview of Bair Hugger Allegations

Roy is filing this Bair Hugger lawsuit, after recently learning that the defendants may had known the risk of deep joint infection associated with their product. The defendants have allegedly concealed vital safety information on their product in order to secure a higher market value.

According to an FDA announcement from 2009, 3M and its associates had falsely advertised their product as meeting the country’s High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) standards. HEPA standards requires that any air filter products made in the United States, must be able to remove 99.97% of all particles in the air.

However, data shows that the Bair Hugger is only capable of removing up to 65% of the bacterial contaminants in the air. The defendants have allegedly known about this problem for years, as the company was forced to admit that the Bair Hugger did not properly filter air blowing onto patients in June 1997.

Furthermore, the defendants also pointed out that the Bair Hugger’s ideal environmental use would be in an operating room with a tape barrier that would prevent the surgical sites to be exposed to bacteria.

Despite the severity of this information, 3M chose to advertise Bair Huggers as safe and effective products during surgery. There are currently thousands of Bair Huggers used in hospitals across the country, with injury complaints being submitted daily.

Roy is one of hundreds of lawsuits, alleging that the Bair Hugger device further complicated his medical condition, requiring him to go through several surgeries to treat his joint infection.

So for being allegedly responsible for manufacturing, selling, distributing, and marketing a dangerous product, Roy is suing 3M. The charges include: negligence, false advertising, concealing information, and misrepresentation.

The Bair Hugger Infection Lawsuit is Case No. 2:15-cv-04995-JCZ-DEK in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Louisiana.

In general, Bair Hugger lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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