Wrongful Death Suit: A fatal transfer from hospital

Source: New York Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-likill174026660nov01,0,2468602.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines

It's been 10 months since George Badley says he watched while careless treatment by paramedics killed his wife, and the retired maintenance man still is not doing well.

"Forty-four years down the drain," he said, referring to his marriage. Police investigated her death, but filed no charges.

Monica Badley, 62, a part- time sales assistant at Sears in Massapequa and a mother of seven, had heart valve replacement surgery last November at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. Breathing problems required her to have a tracheotomy as well.

When the hospital felt she was strong enough, an ambulance crew from privately owned Transcare of Brooklyn came on Dec. 16 to take her to South Shore Health Care, a nursing home in Freeport where she was to complete her recovery.

But according to witnesses, police and a lawsuit filed by her husband, the paramedics taped her breathing tube to her tracheotomy hole and covered the opening that allowed her to exhale. As a result, she suffocated. Badley, who was with his wife in the hospital and the ambulance, said he saw she was suffering, but couldn't get the paramedics to pay attention to her. It wasn't until Monica Badley had been admitted to the nursing home and brought upstairs that a respiratory therapist there noticed she wasn't breathing.

"She was dead as a beet," said Badley, 68, who emigrated with his wife from Guyana 12 years ago. He spoke in the cramped Richmond Hill apartment he's shared with one of his sons since the loss of his wife's annual income of $15,700 forced him to give up his Freeport apartment. "I feel like I could have drunk a whole gallon of rum. I cried and cried and cried."

Later, he sued. The wrongful death claim names the hospital, Transcare and the paramedics - Carlos Asencio and Yen Lim - as defendants. The suit was filed in Kings County, where Transcare is located. Attorney Daniel Buttafuoco of Woodbury said he will seek $10 million in damages.

Depositions will take place within the next few months, Buttafuoco said.

Hospital spokesman Terry Lynam said North Shore conducted a review after Monica Badley's death, even though it didn't happen at the hospital.

"It was determined that the hospital did everything appropriately," Lynam said.

Putting an oxygen mask on a patient with a tracheotomy is so simple that hospital staff saw no need to oversee Asencio and Lim, he said.

"Every EMT [emergency medical technician] is trained in the management of the task," Lynam said. "There was no need for us to be concerned because she was in good shape."

In a statement, Transcare said federal privacy regulations prohibit it from discussing its patients and their treatment "without the express written consent of the patient. In addition, it is our corporate policy not to comment on pending litigation."

A spokesman for the company said Asencio and Lim "are no longer with the company," but would not say why they left. Asencio and Lim could not be reached for comment.

'She was going to be fine'

After the heart valve replacement surgery on Nov. 28, Monica Badley had respiratory failure, so doctors performed a tracheotomy to help her breathe, according to medical records.

By Dec. 16, Lynam said she had improved enough so that arrangements were made to transfer her to a nursing home to complete her recovery.

"That's what makes this so horrible," Buttafuoco, her husband's attorney, said. "She wasn't dying. She was going to be fine."

Badley said he and his wife knew nothing about the transfer until the paramedics showed up.

That day, he said he had gone to the hospital, as he did every weekday. When he arrived about noon, he said he was upset that her sheets had not been changed and he complained to the nurses on the floor, even though his wife told him not to make a fuss.

At 1 p.m., her lunch of mashed potatoes arrived.

"I fed her," he said. "I wiped her mouth."

She couldn't drink so he got her some ice cubes that she let melt in her mouth. Then he read the newspapers to her, a pastime they both enjoyed.

By 3 p.m., the paramedics arrived to take her to the nursing home, surprising the Badleys.

"I could sense something was wrong" when they wheeled his wife out of the room, he said. Her head was arched back and her fists were clenched, he said.

Sounding alarm

Badley said he told the paramedics something was wrong, but he said they assured him she was fine and brought her downstairs to the ambulance. By the time they got there, Badley said his wife looked blue and felt cold. The paramedics said she looked blue because it was 50 degrees outside, he said.

"They said, 'Mr. Badley, listen, we will check her in the van,'" he recalled. But their checks were cursory, he said.

Finally, at the nursing home - just a few blocks from the Badley's Freeport apartment - someone besides Badley noticed something was wrong.

The respiratory therapist there, who asked not to be identified, said she saw right away there was a problem. Instead of using a mask to attach the breathing tube to the tracheotomy opening in her throat, she said the paramedics had taped the tube in place, inadvertently covering a hole in the attachment.

"She wasn't able to exhale," said the therapist, who no longer works at South Shore Health Care. "I never saw anything like that," the therapist said, adding that it's easy and routine for paramedics to attach tracheotomy masks.

Ten months later, Badley said he still hasn't been able to put his life back together.

"I grieve over the whole situation," he said. "Someone has to pay."