Sportsman receives settlement after damages from LASIK eye surgery

Brad Young

Brad Young is an avid outdoor sportsman. He likes to hunt and fish – in all kinds of weather.  He was tired of his glasses getting in the way of his sport – they got wet, they fogged up, they steamed up. He believed laser eye surgery was the answer, and he felt it was safe.

By the time Young began thinking seriously about the surgery in 1999, LASIK surgery had been around for several years. He reasoned that all the bugs must have been worked out. He would get the surgery and no longer have to wear his glasses.

A pre-existing eye condition made him among the worst candidates for LASIK.

On May 21, 1999, Young underwent his first laser surgery. On July 2, 1999, he had laser surgery again. He now knows that a pre-existing eye condition made him among the worst candidates for LASIK. Following the surgeries, Young learned he suffered from keratoconus (KEHR-a-toh-kohn-nus), an eye condition in which the normally round dome-shaped cornea progressively thins causing a cone-like bulge to develop. The condition causes blurring and distortion of vision. The abnormalities in Young’s corneas should have been discovered in his pre-surgery exams, and his doctors should have told him to go home, that he was not a candidate for surgery.

In the weeks after his surgeries, Young began to realize his eyesight wasn’t better. It was worse. He was having difficulty carrying out his job responsibilities for a Portland steel fabricator. He felt his doctors weren’t taking his complaints seriously. He sought second and third opinions. Other specialists told him he was in bad shape and the only surgery that would help him would be an entire corneal transplant.

Young seeks legal help.

With his sight damaged and his relationship with the operating physician deteriorated, Young sought legal help. His wife is an attorney and she asked around to find out what lawyers were taking cases for LASIK eye patients. Her search led Young to the offices of Lawrence Baron and Greg Zeuthen. The two had previously teamed up, successfully, on behalf of other surgery victims.

“From the beginning, Greg was very reassuring,” Young states. “He is extremely personable and put me at ease. I was nervous and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Greg would calm me down and help me focus on the positive.” He adds, “Together, Greg and Larry showed they had a lot of knowledge on these surgeries. They knew exactly what questions to ask and what experts to call on. When the other side would pull something, they always had an answer.”

Young and his attorneys agree to a settlement with the defendant doctor and eye clinic.

Zeuthen and Baron went about building Young’s case. They documented his eye condition and gathered facts about what doctors did and did not tell Young prior to surgery. The case was headed to trial, but Young and his attorneys agreed to a settlement with the defendant doctor and eye clinic.

“Greg and Larry were extremely competent,” Young recalls. “I trusted them with everything. The whole thing was an emotional drain for me and it was reassuring to be working with two men who understood what had happened to me. They really felt and believed that I had been mistreated.”

Young spent several months seeing eye specialists to find out what to do about his sight. Since his surgery, he has experimented with well over 20 different pairs of doctor-recommended contacts. These days he is comfortable with a pair of soft lenses. Still, he adjusts them several times a day and applies eye drops several times a day to ease the discomfort of the lenses. Barring an unlikely corneal transplant, this is the way things will be the rest of his life.