DePuy Hip Replacement Patients' Stories
Larry Barnett
Larry Barnett, a 58-year-old construction worker from Modesto, Illinois has suffered debilitation pain ever since receiving a defective DePuy hip replacement. In a profile in the Springfield, Illinois State Journal Register, Barnett describes how he was told in 2006 that he would need a dual hip replacement. In 2008, he received the DePuy ASR hip replacement for his right hip. This "metal on metal" system soon proved to be extremely problematic for Barnett. In 2010, Barnett began other his right hip "popping" and experiencing extreme pain.
The long-term health consequences could be even more sever for Barnett. One of the more troubling effects of the disintegration of the ASR hip system is the flaking of metal of the hip, which can begin to enter the bloodstream. This happened with Barnett, who in a recent blood test was discovered to have levels of cobalt in his blood stream were over 800 times the amount considered toxic. Cobalt poisoning can lead to nerve damage, cancer and other serious health implications.
Attorney Ed Blizzard is now representing Barnett in a suit against DePuy.
"When people signed up for hip replacement surgeries, they didn't sign up for an oil spill inside their bodies," said Blizzard about Barnett's case, “The company knew the risk and failed to warn physicians and patients about the risk. They shut the plant down in late 2009 and continued to sell the implants.”
Jane Rodgers
In 2007 and 2008, Jane Rogers of Creedmoor, Texas had both hips replaced due to osteoarthritis. Unfortunately, the DePuy ASR hip replacements she had both failed, Rodgers had her hips replaced with DePuy devices, necessitating two additional surgeries in 2010 and 2011 to remove the hips, and a further surgery in 2011 to insert a temporary hip replacement to treat a infection, making five painful operations in four short years.
Jane Rodgers in now represented by Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers in a lawsuit claiming that DePuy knew for years that the ASR XL hip replacement system it had a high failure, but failed to inform doctors until March of 2010, and then waited another five months before recalling the defective product.
"It just floors me that they would withhold that kind of knowledge," Rogers said in an interview in the Austin-American Statesman.
Rodgers, too, is concerned about elevated levels of cobalt and chromium in her bloodstream.
"It's a question of whether the level of exposure is below the toxic level," said Ed Blizzard about the case, "Nobody knows at this point."
