Drunk driver plows into ER, sparking malpractice mayhem
Industry Buzz
“In my opinion, this is ethically questionable at best. I think this is an obvious attempt to recast a premises liability issue into a narrow malpractice context... Holding hospitals accountable isn’t about harming healthcare or doctors—it’s about making sure they keep patients physically safe, especially in places like emergency rooms.” — James Wood, founder and CEO at James Wood Law
In February 2025, a woman, Nadia Bernard, visited the emergency room at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in Austin, TX, after experiencing ongoing and then sudden worsening pain in her left side. []
Her husband, Levi, and their two young children, Sunny and Rio, waited at the ER with her. While there, when they were watching the fish in the waiting room's aquarium, a car crashed through the walls of the hospital and hit all four of the family members.[][]
A family injured, an ER overwhelmed
The ER, ironically, was suddenly at risk of overcapacity. Bernard told KXAN Austin that in the chaos, she thought she might die.
As Bernard was put into an ambulance and transported to nearby St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center, she remembered hearing Sunny screaming. He’d endured a broken nose and jaw, deep lacerations, and a potential brain injury.
Bernard's other son, Rio, had deep cuts in his hand requiring surgery, and her husband Levi had injured his elbow and ankle. Bernard herself was reportedly hospitalized for nearly a month, unable to work due to broken ribs, a broken shoulder, and nerve damage. The driver, whose blood-alcohol level was approximately four times higher than the legal limit, did not survive the crash.
Related: A 'dead' patient calls his family, leading to a major malpractice lawsuitNo barriers, no legal requirement
In the last decade, more than 300 crashes have occurred at medical centers, KXAN reports. The hospital allegedly didn’t employ security bollards to prevent cars from driving into the building. These barriers aren’t legally required, yet industry experts believe they should be.
“The reality is these accidents are frequent,” Rob Reiter, co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council, said in an interview with KXAN. “They are foreseeable. And they are preventable.”[]
On the other hand, the Texas Hospital Association questions whether requiring bollards is even reasonable, citing potential cost issues.[]
Inside the lawsuit
The Bernard family filed a $1 million lawsuit against the hospital, saying the facility lacked appropriate security. St. David’s defense argues that the situation wasn’t one of safety—but of medical malpractice.[]
KXAN notes that in court filings, the hospital system argues that, because Bernard was a patient that day getting a CT scan, her injuries should be treated as “health care liability claims”—despite being in the lobby at the time, not an exam room, and having already been seen by doctors.[]
James Wood, founder and CEO at James Wood Law, tells MDLinx that “misuse” of the medical malpractice law is a way to sidestep responsibility.
“In my opinion, this is ethically questionable at best. I think this is an obvious attempt to recast a premises liability issue into a narrow malpractice context," Wood says. Wood adds that “holding hospitals accountable isn’t about harming healthcare or doctors—it’s about making sure they keep patients physically safe, especially in places like emergency rooms.”
Daniel Harwin, Esq., a medical malpractice attorney and partner at FHV Legal, agrees. “The hospital's defense strategy is troubling,” he says. “In my view, the core legal question will be: Was the injury connected to the provision of healthcare, or was it a result of a failure in premises safety and traffic control?”
Harwin says he would likely consider this more of a general negligence or premises liability case.
David Kleinberg, personal injury attorney at The Injury Claim Law Firm, uses an analogy to admonish the use of medical malpractice as a defense: “If the claimant fell down because they were not given a walker and had a medical condition which should’ve required them to have a walker, that would probably be medical malpractice. However, if a person fell in the hospital because the lunch lady spilled soup on the floor, and the claimant slipped on that soup, that would not be medical malpractice. This is because serving, transporting, and cleaning up soup doesn’t require the application of medical judgment.”