Woman paralyzed by chiropractic neck manipulation

Provided by: www.canoe.com

Written by: Paul Benedetti and Wayne MacPhail

Six years ago Diane Rodrigue, 36, lay in the intensive care ward of the Sudbury General Hospital attached to a ventilator.

She couldn't breath, couldn't move and couldn't talk. But she could listen. She could listen as doctor after doctor told her she had been paralyzed by a stroke she suffered after a chiropractic neck manipulation.

They said she would never get better and would probably die of pneumonia. According to Rodrigue, the doctors asked her if she wanted the ventilator turned off so she could die.

Diane chose to live, and a month later, when she stopped taking morphine and could think clearly, decided to sue her chiropractor for five million dollars. She discussed the suit with her lawyer via her mother who read her lips. Ms Rodrigue and the chiropractor settled out of court for one million.

Today Rodrigue lives in a specially-built apartment in her parents' home in Iroquois Falls, an hour north of Timmins, Ontario. She is still paralyzed but is no longer on a ventilator. She has four fulltime and one part time nurses looking after her around the clock. They cost her $100,000 a year.

In 1983 Diane Rodrigue was the office manager for the Temiskaming District Ministry of Housing overseeing a staff of four. The ministry's office was in the same building as chiropractor Kristin Shepherd. Rodrigue was suffering from headaches and some of the other women in her office had been visiting Dr. Shepherd. "They came back saying it had done them a world of good," said Rodrigue. So, she decided to try it.

On her first visit Shepherd talked to her about chiropractic medicine and explained that subluxations, or problems with alignment of her spine, could cause health problems. She sent Rodrigue for neck and full-spine x-rays. On the next visit, according to Rodrigue, Dr. Shepherd told her that vertabrae in her spine were out of alignment and that this was causing her headaches. She then adjusted Rodrigue's hip, back and finally her neck, rotating it sideways.

After a couple of weeks of treatment Rodrigue said she realized her headaches and neck pain got worse after each adjustment, not better. Three weeks after her first adjustment the pain got so bad she vomitted. The next morning she called her chiropractor at home. "I was really frightened," Rodrigue recalls. That day Shepherd met with Rodrigue and agreed that she shouldn't get any neck manipulations. "She wrote in red letters on my chart 'No neck manipulation, slight traction only' and put red stars beside the words," said Rodrigue. She continued to go for treatment, just getting traction, or a slight pulling on the neck, from her chiropractor.

Dr. Shepherd, now practising in New Liskeard, Ontario, says she only recalls Rodrigue getting her neck adjusted beyond light traction once during her visits to her.

Rodrigue is unclear about exactly how many times her neck was manipulated during her visits. Dr. Shepherd recalls noting the warning on Rodrigue's chart.

In January, 1994 Rodrigue went for her last session with the chiropractor, a review and final assessment. That assessment was done by Dr. Michael Nenonen. He had been filling in for Dr. Shepherd for a week. Nenonen had previously treated Rodrigue on two occasions.

During the last assessment session Nenonen suggested that he give her an adjustment. Rodrigue agreed. According to Rodrigue, Nenonen adjusted first her hip, then her back and then pulled her neck upwardly slightly. Suddenly, Rodrigue recalls, he twisted Rodrigue's neck to the right. She felt a sudden pain and then a feeling of spreading warmth in her neck. She would soon be paralyzed.

Dr. Nenonen, now practising in Sault Ste. Marie, recalls that Ms Rodrigue was his patient and that he did treat her that day. On the advice of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, he could not speak further about the incident.

After the adjustment Rodrigue got up normally and went to pay for her visit. That's when she started having trouble holding her head up and her breathing became laboured. She sat slumped in an office chair as the feeling of warmth spread in her neck. Her arms became floppy and her breathing grew steadily worse. According to Rodrigue, the chiropractor and his secretary were panicked. "I don't know why, but I wasn't," she recalls, "I was telling them what to do."

Rodrigue was taken to a local hospital then flown by helicopter to the Sudbury General. She stopped breathing on her own three days later. The hospital would be her home for eight months. She was on a ventilator and unable to speak for two years. Part of the settlement money she got went towards building the special apartment in her parents' house where she spends now most of her time.

Rodrigue has only $200,000 left of the original million. She worries that in a couple of years she'll be forced to move to an institution. "Some place way down south," she says. "Away from my family. They don't have places like that for me up here because of the constant care I need."

^ TOP

© COPYRIGHT 2004 - FAACT Disclaimer