Medicolegal corner: Quadriplegia following chiropractic manipulation

A 45 year old male with multiple comorbidities presented to his internist with a 2 week history of right sided neck pain and tenderness, accompanied by tingling in the hand. The internists’ neurological examination was normal, except for decreased range of motion of the right arm. He referred the patient to a chiropractor; he performed plain X rays which revealed mild spasm, but never ordered a magnetic resonance imaging study. The chiropractor manipulated the patient's neck on two successive days. By the morning of the third visit, the patient reported extreme pain and difficulty walking. Without performing a new neurological examination or obtaining an MR scan, the chiropractor again manipulated the patient's neck. He immediately became quadriplegic. Despite undergoing an emergency C5 C6 anterior cervical diskectomy/fusion to address a massive disc found on the MR scan (CT was negative), the patient remained quadriplegic (e.g., C4 sensory, C6 motor levels). A major point of negligence in this case was the failure of both the referring internist and chiropractor to order an MR of the cervical spine prior to the chiropractic manipulation. The internist claimed that there was no known report of permanent quadriplegia resulting from neck manipulation in any medical journal, article or book, or in any literature of any kind or on the internet and that the risk of this injury must be vanishingly small given the large numbers of manipulations performed annually. The total amount of the verdict was $14,596,000.00 the internist's liability was 5% ($759,181.65).