A family has been awarded almost $1 billion after suing the Utah hospital where their daughter was born, after she was left with life-long disabilities after a "botched" delivery.
As reported by The Sun, a Utah judge awarded the family $951 million after finding catastrophic failures at Jordan Valley Medical Center West Valley Campus.
Anyssa Zancanella, of Wyoming, sued the hospital after having a horrendous experience during labor in October 2019 after what was described as a healthy and uneventful pregnancy.
Zancanella's water broke while she was visiting the Salt Lake City area and, being that she was several hours away from her own doctor, she was rushed to West Valley Hospital, which was then operated by Steward Health Care, by her partner, Daniel McMichael.
There, she claimed in her lawsuit that nurses gave her "excessive" doses of Pitocin - a labor-inducing drug - and ignored signs of distress, with the filing noting that "this was the very first, or one of the very first times, that either of the assigned bedside nurses had individually been assigned a laboring patient."
Zancanella claimed that doctors then waited more than a day to perform a C-section to deliver her daugter Azaylee, by which time the baby had been starved of oxygen and suffered catastrophic brain damage.
The lawsuit stated, as cited by The Sun: "[The obstetrician] abandoned mother and fetus/infant when she was fully aware of significant and dangerous issues with the ongoing labor process and the ongoing health and well-being of the fetus.
"[Azaylee] sustained damages, including but not limited to, permanent neurological and cognitive damages, physical damages, emotional damages, limitations in physical, cognitive and mental function, as well as pain and suffering."
Azaylee is now four years old and is non-verbal, and requires round-the-clock care, and suffers from seizures.
She now has to undergo both physical and occupational therapy and must share a bed with her parents because she cannot sleep alone.
Zancanella said during her testimony: "[Azaylee] had her life stolen. We all did. We had her taken from us. She is trapped. I know that my daughter is in there, but she can't come out and I think of that every day."
Steward Health Care was found liable by Third District Judge Patrick Corum, per reports, who said at the hearing: "[Zancanella] would have been better off delivering this baby at the bathroom of a gas station, or in a hut somewhere in Africa, than in this hospital.
"Literally, this was the most dangerous place on the planet for her to have given birth."
He continued: "The person she was to be, the person she deserved to be, is trapped inside a brain-damaged child. I cannot think of anything more profound, total or complete than that loss."
The family was awarded $951million, though it remains to be seen how much they will actually receive, as Steward, once the US's largest private hospital operators, reportedly filed for bankruptcy in 2024 and withdrew from the case.
Zancanella's attorney, Jennifer Morales, has stated that they expect to receive at least half of the awarded amount in punitive damages.