Illinois Jury Awards Over $23.5M Against Mercy Hospital and Medical Center for Baby’s Brain Damage Due to Delayed Birth

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 97th%, 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 3rd.

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 – reckless “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.