A misdiagnosed broken hip was worth $2.9-million to Clearwater optometrist Daniel Torretta, a Pinellas Circuit Court jury decided Friday.
      Torretta, 56, was injured in 1993 when he drove off a rainy road into a median. After several days of pain, he went to his family doctor, who referred him to Clearwater radiologist Dr. Joseph Witek.
      A lawsuit filed in 1995 alleged that Witek failed to spot a hip fracture on a x-ray. As a result, the injury went undiagnosed for five months. By the time another doctor did an X-ray and found the fracture, it had widened and tissue was dying, the suit alleged.
      "Had it been properly diagnosed" the first time, Torretta "would have healed," said Tampa Attorney Steve Yerrid. Instead, Torretta underwent a total replacement of the left hip and faces two more surgeries. Yerrid said.
      After a one-week trial, the jury awarded $900,000 in medical costs and $2-million for pain and suffering. It is one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts ever in Pinellas.

04/25/97