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Dallas Medical Malpractice: Teen Dies After Getting Rabies From Kidney

In Dallas, a judge is hearing a medical malpractice appeal regarding the death of a Texas high school student who died after receiving a kidney infected with rabies during an organ transplant.

In 2004, four people from across Texas died of rabies after receiving the organs of a 20-year-old Texarkana man who doctors did not know had rabies. The man was bitten by a rabid bad just a few days before his death. One of the people who received his organs was Eastern Texas high school student Joshua Hightower, who needed a new kidney. He died seven weeks after the transplant from complications from rabies.

Joshua’s parents, Dale and Jennifer, are now suing the hospital, Baylor University Medical Center, as well as two doctors who were involved in the organ harvesting and organ transplant. However, the original lawsuit was thrown out by the judge, who said that the medical expert for the prosecution did not thoroughly explain why the doctors and hospital were responsible for the teen’s death. The parents argue that their son’s kidney transplant was an unnecessary surgery. In addition, they say that the donor’s organs should not have been considered in the first place because of the man’s history of prison time and addiction should have been associated with risks for disease and infection.

The medical malpractice appeal was witnessed by several hundred Dallas high school students with an interest in law, as part of the Dallas Bar Association’s “Appealing to the Public” program.

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