It’s almost a miracle she survived,” said the Hudsonville family’s attorney, Tom Worsfold.
After her team’s softball practice, the 11-year-old girl went to the restaurant on Port Sheldon Street and ordered a hamburger, chicken nuggets and french fries. A few days later, her family says she had abdominal cramps, diarrhea and blood in her stool. She was hospitalized with an E. coli infection, which later turned into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), attacking her kidneys. She was admitted to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and things only got worse.
“The infection continued to progress and attacked her pancreas and her brain,” Worsfold said. “She had significant brain swelling suffering seizures while in the hospital, she had left-sided paralysis.”
Aspen was on constant dialysis for her kidney issues. She was unconscious at times and hallucinated, Worsfold said.
“Her parents took a video of her crying out in the hospital asking, ‘Why am I so sick?'” the family attorney said. “It’s just so bad. That terror for an 11-year-old girl needs to be compensated.”
She was hospitalized at DeVos for three weeks before rehabbing at Mary Free Bed for a week. Aspen finally went home more than a month after her initial hospitalization.
“Her family is so thankful that they have her, that she didn’t pass from this, because it was so close,” Worsfold said.
Worsfold said Aspen is still struggling with high blood pressure, weakness on the left side of her body, diabetes and brain damage, which has affected her ability to learn.
“The spring before she got sick, she placed as a fifth grader in sixth-grade level of reading,” Worsfold said. “One year later, after she got sick, as a sixth grader she was now reading at a fourth-grade level.”
Aspen tested in the 70th percentile for math on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress before the incident. One year after getting sick, she was in the 9th percentile, Worsfold said.
The family is suing Meritage Hospitality Group, the company that owns more than 380 Wendy’s, Taco John’s, Morning Belle and Stan’s Tacos locations across 16 states. The family is asking for $20 million in damages, including past and future economic losses. Worsfold said they are accounting for an expected loss of lifetime earning potential because of her brain injury and cognitive impairments.
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