Lloyd Bell

Jonathan Buckelew reached the emergency department at North Fulton Medical Center in Roswell, Georgia, by ambulance at about 4:20 p.m. on October 26, 2015. He was thirty-two and active, a man who had played almost every sport. During a chiropractic neck adjustment that afternoon he had experienced seizure-like activity and become unresponsive. Within twenty minutes of his arrival, Dr. Matthew Womack, the emergency physician, ordered a CT scan and a CT angiogram of his head and neck, and the angiogram showed a possible dissection of the arteries in his neck. Womack listed stroke among the possible diagnoses, but he suspected meningitis or encephalitis.

Buckelew was admitted to the intensive care unit at 8:20 that evening. The next morning an ICU doctor examined him, ordered an MRI, and requested a neurology consult. The MRI showed a large dissection and a stroke in the brainstem. The ICU doctor and a neurologist, Dr. Bernard Drexinger, started him on a blood thinner and sent the images to Grady Hospital, a comprehensive stroke center. By then, the Court of Appeals of Georgia later recounted, it was “well out of the timeline” for anything to make a difference in Buckelew’s outcome. He was left with locked-in syndrome, unable to move any part of his body but his eyes while his cognitive faculties remained intact, and he requires constant care. He cannot talk. He communicates by blinking, or by typing on a keypad with his nose.

Seven years later, in October 2022, Lloyd Bell tried Buckelew’s malpractice case in the State Court of Fulton County, before Judge Eric Richardson, with Laura Shamp and Joshua Silk of Shamp Silk. Bell has said he was “pulled into this case” to work alongside Shamp. Over three weeks the two lawyers split the trial. Shamp gave the plaintiff’s opening statement and cross-examined the on-call neurologist and the radiologist. Bell’s share centered on Womack. When Womack took the stand early in the trial, Bell was the first lawyer to cross-examine him, and Bell conducted the direct examinations of Dr. Martin Lutz, the emergency-medicine expert who testified that Womack grossly departed from the standard of care, and Dr. Raul Nogueira, the interventional neurologist who testified that timely treatment more likely than not would have left Buckelew better off. In closing, Bell argued causation. The jury found Womack and the radiologist, Dr. James Waldschmidt, grossly negligent and returned a $75 million verdict. The Court of Appeals affirmed on March 10, 2025, and on June 10, 2025, the Supreme Court of Georgia denied Womack’s petition for certiorari.

What Womack Told Dr. Futrell, and What He Added to the Note

Womack spoke briefly with the on-call neurologist, Dr. Peter Futrell. Futrell testified that Womack did not mention that Buckelew had seen a chiropractor, that Buckelew had experienced a second seizure-like event while Womack was performing a lumbar puncture, that Buckelew had undergone a CT angiogram, or that the angiogram showed a dissection of the arteries in his neck. Womack then requested an ICU consult, and physician assistant Christopher Nickum met with Womack and admitted Buckelew.

Shamp put the length of those conversations before the jurors in her closing. “The conversations that you heard evidence about lasted one minute; two minutes; 30 seconds,” she said, and “life-threatening, important information was communicated in seconds.” In 2025 Bell described what Womack had seen and what he had not done: “The ER doctor saw this patient was having all these signs and symptoms of stroke and never called a stroke alert,” he said.

The next day, Womack pulled up his note of the conversation and added that he had discussed the head CT and findings of age-indeterminate dissection and had advised Futrell that Buckelew experienced symptoms during a chiropractic visit. Shamp argued to the jury that Womack altered the record after he learned Buckelew’s true condition. Paul Weathington, Futrell’s lawyer, pressed the same fact in his own closing: “We’re in this case, folks, for one reason: because this note [by Womack] got changed.”

The radiologist defended his read on narrower ground. His lawyer, Scott Bailey, told the jurors that Waldschmidt had read the images to answer a specific question—whether one of Buckelew’s arteries was torn—and had properly communicated the tear, which other providers could have linked to a stroke. Recalling testimony that compared a stroke to a forest fire, Bailey said: “[Waldschmidt’s] job is not to go down there and put [the fire] out. His job is to identify the smoke, and he did that.” Shamp told the jury that Waldschmidt had admitted he missed the stroke when he examined the images. The jury assigned Waldschmidt 40 percent of the fault and Womack 60 percent.

Slight Diligence and the Clear-and-Convincing Burden

Because Womack treated Buckelew in a hospital emergency department, Georgia law required Buckelew to prove gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence. The verdict form asked the question in those terms: “Do you find by clear and convincing evidence that MATTHEW WOMACK, MD was grossly negligent, and find by a preponderance of the evidence that such gross negligence was a proximate cause of injury to Plaintiff?” Georgia defines gross negligence as the absence of “slight diligence,” meaning “that degree of care which every [person] of common sense, however inattentive he may be, exercises under the same or similar circumstances.”

Lutz, on Bell’s direct examination, identified the specific departures. He testified with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Womack grossly departed from the standard of care by failing to tell Futrell that Buckelew had been to a chiropractor earlier that day and that Womack had ordered a CT angiogram looking for, and possibly showing, a dissection; by not asking Futrell to come to the hospital during their conversation and not calling him back after witnessing the second seizure-like event; and by failing to document Buckelew’s symptoms accurately in the medical records.

Womack’s defense rested on what he had done. John Hall of Hall Booth Smith told the jury that Womack properly ordered imaging and conveyed Buckelew’s background when he consulted the other providers. “[Womack] did what a reasonable emergency room physician in [those] circumstances, managing a patient load, going through that night… would do,” Hall said. “He met the standard of care.” On appeal Womack argued that ordering the CT and CT angiogram and consulting a neurologist amounted to more than slight diligence, and that Buckelew had failed to show that Womack “did nothing” to treat him.

The Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Watkins joined by Presiding Judge Doyle and Judge Hodges, held that the evidence permitted a jury to find by clear and convincing evidence that Womack caused harm by grossly deviating from the applicable medical standard of care. Futrell’s and Lutz’s testimony let the jury find that, after ordering the scans, Womack left their findings, the chiropractic visit, and the second seizure-like event out of his conversation with the specialist who could have acted on them. The court also rejected Womack’s challenge to the gross-negligence jury charge. Instructions are read as a whole, and a verdict stands when the charge “substantially presents issues in such a way as is not likely to confuse the jury”; here the verdict form itself required a finding of gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence.

Nerve Cells and the Golden Hour

The defense also contested causation. The defendants maintained that the stroke was severe enough to produce the same result regardless of timing, and Hall pointed the jurors toward the chiropractor: “That chiropractor is solely responsible.” Womack, who had moved for a directed verdict, argued on appeal that Buckelew’s causation expert had offered only speculation about what the best care might have achieved.

Nogueira, qualified as an expert in interventional neurology, general neurology, and general medicine, testified on Bell’s direct examination that if Buckelew had received the treatment available at the time, he more likely than not would have had a better outcome. Buckelew had reached the hospital within the “golden hour,” early enough to be a candidate for both TPA and mechanical thrombectomy. Nogueira also relied on Buckelew’s age and on his “very good collateral flow”—eight or nine out of ten on the BATMAN score. He clarified the opinion on the stand: he had “little doubt, no doubt to the best of my scientific and medical knowledge” that Buckelew’s outcome would have been different with the treatment available in October 2015.

Bell carried that testimony into his closing. “How many nerve cells died on their watch while Jonathan was in the hospital, not moving, not talking, but looking with terror in his eyes?” he asked the jurors. “How many brain cells died because they couldn’t get their act together and practice medicine like they should have.”

On appeal, the court held that Nogueira’s testimony met Georgia’s requirement that a causation opinion rest on reasonable medical probability or reasonable medical certainty. His conclusion that the treatment available in October 2015 more likely than not would have produced a better outcome rested on specific facts—Buckelew’s age, his early arrival, and his collateral flow—and the trial court had correctly denied the directed verdict.

Forty-Eight Seconds From E.R. Cast

Womack’s emergency-medicine expert, Dr. Matthew Delaney, defended the next-day addition to the note. On cross-examination he was asked about Womack going back into the medical record, after he learned that Buckelew had suffered a brain stem stroke, and adding to his note. “Right. That’s totally normal,” Delaney answered. He told the jurors that “99 percent of my notes get changed before I finalize them.”

Delaney co-hosted a podcast, “E.R. Cast,” subtitled “Straight Talk About Emergency Medicine.” Buckelew’s lawyers played the jury a 48-second clip in which Delaney said that adding to or changing a plaintiff’s medical record is a “death blow to any defense” if the provider is later accused of malpractice. On redirect, Delaney called the podcast “med-u-tainment” and said he had been talking about “true alteration” of a record “several weeks down the road,” which he distinguished from changes made before a record is finalized.

Womack argued on appeal that the impeachment was improper. The Court of Appeals held that the trial court had not abused its discretion in allowing Buckelew to question Delaney about his podcast statements, because the earlier statement contradicted his testimony and Delaney had the opportunity to explain it. The court then rejected Womack’s claim of cumulative error, finding no combined prejudicial effect that required a new trial, and affirmed.

After the affirmance, Jamie Terrence, a nurse and former hospital risk-management director, and Damian Capozzola, a Los Angeles lawyer, wrote up the case for clinicians, quoting Delaney’s “death blow” remark, and advised medical professionals and facilities to “closely scrutinize what is published via social media.”

Certiorari Denied, and Jack Buckelew’s Account

The jury returned its verdict on October 20, 2022. The verdict broke down into $9 million for past medical expenses, $20 million for future medical expenses, and $46 million for past and future pain and suffering.

“This case is heartbreaking because Jonathan’s paralysis and brain damage were completely avoidable,” Bell said after the verdict. “If the slew of healthcare providers involved in Jonathan’s care would have acted according to the standard of care, caught and treated his stroke earlier, and communicated more effectively, Jonathan’s life would look entirely different.” Of the award he said, “We know it can’t give Jonathan back the life he led before this awful situation,” and added, “but we hope that holding these doctors accountable will prevent the suffering of any additional patients.”

Waldschmidt filed a cross-appeal, then gave notice that Buckelew’s claims against him had been resolved, and the Court of Appeals allowed him to withdraw it. In February 2025, with Womack’s appeal still pending, Bell brought Jonathan’s father, Jack Buckelew, onto Face the Jury, the medical-malpractice podcast Bell hosts, for a twenty-eight-minute episode titled “The Cost of Justice & The Real Impact of ‘Tort Reform.’” They talked about life after the medical error, Jack’s pursuit of the case on Jonathan’s behalf, and Senate Bill 68, Georgia’s proposed tort-reform bill, and how it could limit the ability of families like the Buckelews to bring such cases.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the next month. After the appellate decision, Bell said: “The Court of Appeals has made it clear that emergency room physicians must be held accountable when their actions—or inaction—lead to catastrophic harm.” Womack sought review in the Supreme Court of Georgia, which denied certiorari in Womack v. Buckelew, No. S25C0923, on June 10, 2025, leaving the Court of Appeals decision in place.

Jonathan relies on his family and a team of nurses around the clock. The Buckelew home has been reconfigured for him, from his bedroom to a physical therapy area to the living room, where his favorite spot is in front of the fish tank. Jack and Janice Buckelew turned their garage into a stockpile of medical supplies. “We do work really hard to keep at least two months ahead on the supplies,” Jack said in 2025. “We created an ICU, honestly.” The supplies, the reconfigured rooms and the in-home medical systems came by way of the verdict.

“Jonathan was having a stroke when he came to the hospital and they missed it,” Bell said in October 2025. “We know doctors are going to make mistakes,” he said. “It’s critical the hospital develop policy and procedures and protocols that will mitigate or reduce those mistakes.”

Sandy Williams’s X-Rays and Tony Waldrop’s Cyst

Bell, a former U.S. Army JAG Corps attorney, founded Bell Law Firm in Atlanta in 1999, and he has spent more than three decades representing patients and families harmed by medical negligence. Five years before the Buckelew trial, he tried Sandra Williams’s case in Columbus.

Williams, known as Sandy, was fifty-three. Days after neck surgery, she came to St. Francis Hospital with severe swelling in her neck and throat pain, unable to swallow. A hematoma from the operation was growing, and it closed off her windpipe. She went into respiratory failure, lay in a coma for three weeks, and woke blind and brain-damaged from the lack of oxygen, dependent on caregivers. Bell argued that the hospital’s on-call staff physician, Dr. Erik Westerlund, failed to come to the hospital, review her imaging, or treat her while she was stable enough to prevent the collapse. “He had put Sandy at risk, and Sandy’s paying the price,” Bell told the jurors. He said afterward that Westerlund had “tremendous credibility issues”: no one saw him until hours after Williams arrived, and records showed he never reviewed her X-rays.

On December 11, 2017, after a two-week trial and more than eight hours of deliberation, a Muscogee County State Court jury returned a $26 million verdict against St. Francis. The hospital had offered $5 million before trial. Bell said that St. Francis then agreed to waive any appeal and pay the full judgment. “The most powerful part of the case was the plaintiff, Sandy Williams,” he said.

Tony Waldrop was a Vietnam combat veteran, a Purple Heart recipient and a small-business owner. He had been exposed to Agent Orange and had a history of cancers, skin cancer among them. In June 2013 Dr. Joseph Payne, a dermatologist with Dermatology Associates of Atlanta, performed Mohs surgery to remove a skin cancer near his ear. That December Payne removed a growth from the same area, diagnosed it as a cyst, and ordered no biopsy. In February 2014 other doctors found cancer in the same region. The cancer and the surgery to remove it cost Waldrop most of one ear, his teeth and his salivary glands, along with parts of his face, skull and jawbone.

Waldrop died in 2022, at seventy-four, of a different cancer. His widow, Patricia Worley, continued the case, and in December 2025 Bell tried it in the State Court of Fulton County before Judge Eric Richardson, who had presided over the Buckelew trial. Bell argued that Payne declared Waldrop cancer-free after the June 2013 surgery despite inconclusive slides, should have referred him for possible radiation, and would have found the cancer earlier by biopsying the December growth. “You practice medicine to the standard of care to save patients; not be negligent and allow a horrible outcome,” he told the jurors. “That’s not responsible medicine. Tony deserved better.” Taylor Tribble of Huff Powell Bailey, Payne’s lawyer, answered that the tumor had been too deep for Payne to reasonably detect: “Cancer can recur, even if you do every type of treatment possible.”

On December 9, 2025, the jury found Payne responsible, and the next day it awarded $32 million for Waldrop’s pain and suffering and $16 million for his wife’s losses. The highest settlement offer before trial had been $2 million. Richardson added $8.8 million in prejudgment interest, for a judgment of $56.8 million, with post-judgment interest of 9.75 percent, almost $13,000 a day. Bell said afterward that Payne’s June 2013 Mohs report had left out the extent of nerve involvement, and that Payne had explained that a nurse “forgot to check a box.” “Pat’s incredibly grateful to the jurors,” Bell said. “They listened carefully. They showed a tremendous amount of respect to her and to Tony for what they’ve been through.”

Eighty-Seven Liters at Atlanta Medical Center

In the summer of 2026 Bell was lead trial attorney, with Shuli Green of Green Injury Law, for the family of Byung “Ben” Oh, a seventy-seven-year-old retired Army veteran. Oh fell from a ladder while working in his yard on April 30, 2018, fractured a bone in his back, and was admitted to WellStar’s Atlanta Medical Center, where he had spine surgery on May 4. After the surgery he developed a chyle leak, a leak of lymphatic fluid. The family’s case was that Dr. Barry Jeffries placed a suprapubic catheter outside Oh’s bladder, where it drained and worsened the leak, and that Dr. Amy Wyrzykowski failed to investigate the fluid loss as Oh’s condition declined, did not personally review critical imaging, and played down the leak. Over eleven days, 87 liters of chylous fluid were drained from his body, and none of the doctors, the family said, took ownership of his deteriorating condition. He developed septic shock and multiorgan failure and died on July 21, 2018.

His widow, Myung Ja Oh, and their daughter, Susan, had sued in April 2020. The trial in the State Court of Fulton County began on July 21, 2026, the eighth anniversary of Oh’s death. On August 4, 2026, the jury returned a $15 million verdict, $13 million for the full value of Oh’s life and $2 million for his conscious pain and suffering, assigning 67.5 percent of the fault to Wyrzykowski and WellStar Medical Group and 32.5 percent to Jeffries and Diagnostic Imaging Specialists. Bell said after the verdict: “Ben entered the hospital with a back injury, but after surgery his condition continued to deteriorate as critical warning signs went unrecognized and his care was not properly coordinated.” “After eight years, this verdict gives the Oh family a measure of accountability for what happened to Ben,” he said.

Two days after the verdict, Bell said: “The case has now been resolved to the family’s satisfaction.”