Carbon Monoxide Delayed Effects

I have several times on this blog preached about the delayed effects of Carbon Monoxide Exposure, “Delayed Neurological Sequelae” or DNS, but a recent study confirms that an early study that cardiac or heart damage from carbon monoxide exposure can occur years down the road. Click here for more on DNS.

While the study comes from an unusual source in the field of Medicine, Iran, the basics of the study seem legitimate. For more on this story, click here.

The suggestion of such potential raises continuing challenges for those in the field of trying to recover compensation for those in the civil justice arena. If someone has a heart attack or cardiac damage years after exposure, what is thought to be the limitation of time in which one can sue, may have run. However, in most states, the statute of limitations does not run until there has been a discovery of the damage from the wrongdoing. While this is not a clear cut situation, it may in fact be possible to bring a lawsuit many years after the exposure, if it can be clearly demonstrated that there was wrongdoing involved; that the heart disease could be logically linked to the carbon monoxide exposure; and that the plaintiff had no notice of the actual injury which manifested itself down the road.

Our law firm had an excellent result this year in a case where a seizure disorder manifested itself after a nominal settlement of an auto accident case. We settled for a mid six figure amount, even though the case wasn’t filed until 4 years after the accident, and 3.5 years after the case was initially settled for a sum around $25,000.

The critical issue to remember when there is someone with carbon monoxide exposure is that WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) does not apply. Even the neurological symptoms can take 40 days to mature, and heart disease potentially long term. If you have been exposed, monitor your health closely, long term. That monitoring should looks especially closely at not just the brain, but the heart as well.