COOK COUNTY JURY AWARDS $23.5+ MILLION AGAINST TRINITY HEALTH-OWNED MERCY HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER FOR BABY BOY’S BRAIN DAMAGE DUE TO DELAYED BIRTH

CHICAGO, IL – On February 23, 2026, after 5 hours of deliberation, a Cook County jury awarded a verdict in excess of $23.5 million to Dylan Gong for the brain injury he sustained at birth as a result of the negligence of Trinity Health-owned Mercy Hospital and Medical Center. Matthew Patterson and Ryan Timoney of Beam Legal Team, LLC tried the case for four weeks.

Dylan Gong, now 8 years old, suffered birth asphyxia and hypoxic-ischemic brain damage at birth on June 3, 2017. In the presence of ongoing distress, Mercy Hospital’s doctors and nurses negligently “waited and waited” to deliver Dylan by timely C-section. Despite classic signs that there were too many contractions which were cutting off oxygen supply to the baby and causing distress before birth, the doctors and nurses at Mercy repeatedly waited to deliver Dylan until it was too late and his brain had been irreversibly injured.

Despite Dylan’s brain damage, he has a Full-Scale IQ of 105, nonverbal intelligence scores in the 97^th%, and received good grades in school albeit with significant accommodations. However, due to Dylan’s brain damage, he lacks the capability to use his abilities and requires extensive support for basic activities of daily living, which he will need for the rest of his life. As a result of his brain damage at birth, Dylan has a complex neurologic disability and has been diagnosed with Mixed Expressive and Receptive Language Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Behavioral Disorder, and mild Cerebral Palsy.

Extensive prenatal monitoring and testing proved that Dylan was perfectly healthy and neurologically normal when his mother came to the hospital with contractions on June 3^rd. Shortly after arriving at the hospital, the triage nurse correctly identified that the electronic fetal heart monitor demonstrated that Dylan was not receiving adequate oxygen and that immediate life-saving intervention was required. However, the Mercy staff-attending physician Yuhang Shek, M.D. – who had failed his boards twice and was not Board-Certified as was required by Mercy’s By-Laws to be on staff – recklessly “waited” to deliver Dylan as required by the standard of care. Despite signs that Dylan was lacking oxygen and needed to be delivered emergently, Dr. Shek then abandoned Dylan by leaving the hospital to go to his office to schedule other patients. When Mercy’s resident physician and nurses finally notified Mercy’s in-house supervising “Obstetrician of the Day” about this dangerous plan of “waiting”, she immediately knew that Dylan needed to be delivered via Emergency C-Section. Yet the in-house OB negligently delayed calling and performing a C-section. Instead she waited for Dr. Shek to come back to the hospital to perform surgery. By the time Dylan was finally born, his heartrate had crashed into bradycardia, and he was born lifeless due to the brain damage he sustained before birth.

Despite overwhelming evidence that Mercy Hospital negligently delayed Dylan’s delivery and negligently credentialed Dr. Shek for no reason other than his knowledge of the Mandarin/Cantonese language, the now-defunct hospital’s corporate parent, Trinity Health, did not take responsibility. Instead, over the past 8 years the corporate defendant tried to claim that Dylan’s brain may have been injured for some unknown reason at some unknown time prior to his labor and delivery. Further, contrary to all of his medical records, Trinity claimed that all of Dylans’ neurologic conditions are unrelated to his known brain damage, and that Dylan will somehow go on to live a completely normal life.

Lead trial lawyer, Matthew Patterson, stated:

“This hospital system failed Dylan and his family. First, in an effort to prevent patients living in the Chinatown neighborhood from going elsewhere for their healthcare, it credentialed an unfit doctor for the sole reason that he spoke Mandarin putting Dylan, and other patients like him, at risk. Then, when the negligently credentialed physician abandoned his patients in need, the Hospital in-house obstetrician and staff lacked the conviction to do what they knew was necessary to save Dylan’s brain from irreversible damage.

While no one can ever heal Dylan’s brain, the compensation provided by the jury will be used to ensure that Dylan is protected and cared for over the long life that he is expected to live.

We want to sincerely thank all the jurors who dedicated almost a month of their lives to Dylan’s case, listened to the evidence, and reached a true and just verdict on behalf of Dylan. We also thank the Honorable Judge Scott McKenna and his entire Court staff for providing a fair trial for all parties, so that Dylan had the opportunity to be heard.

About Beam Legal Team, LLC

Though based in Chicago, Beam Legal Team takes cases nationwide. Matt Patterson of Beam Legal has now obtained jury verdicts since 2023 totaling in excess of $130,000,000. Our firm represents families in a wide range of birth injuries that are the result of medical malpractice. We specialize in finding justice for families of children whose conditions were the result of mismanagement of pregnancy or labor. Our firm also assists clients in detecting birth injuries. For more information visit beamlegalteam.com.