James Woods Wrongful Death Of His Brother For Negligent Medical Treatment
It seems that even celebrities are touched by this issue of wrongful death from time to time.
This time around, actor James Woods is suing Kent Hospital in Warwicke, RI, for wrongful death in the passing of his brother Michael, who died of a heart attack at the age of 49. The suit alleges negligence in his treatment by the hospital staff.
The problem the plaintiffs are going to have in this case hinge on trying to determine just how the medical staff was negligent in the case of heart failure. So far, nurses have stated that his brother presented to the emergency room with throat pain, and determined, along with his brother, that his symptoms didn't seem all that serious. Unknown to many people, sometimes one of the symptoms of a heart attack might be pain in the throat, jaw, and neck area.
At the same time in this case, it seems that, like many hospitals, the paperwork in the medical record is incomplete. He was initially sent to what's known as "express care". Another nurse examined him and felt his symptoms were much worse, and transferred him to a different area of the emergency room for serious cases, but acknowledged that she didn't fill out the proper paperwork when she sent Michael there, and couldn't explain why. Also, earlier paperwork that contained medications Michael was on were never signed by him, nor dated by anyone else. Thus, the claims of negligence.
Still, it's going to be a hard case to prove. Two recent cases might show how hard this type of thing is going to be. Those cases involved John Ritter's wife Amy and the Gibb family both suing doctors and hospitals for wrongful death of Amy's husband and the brother of the Gibbs. In both cases, it was determined that the doctors had done everything they could with the knowledge they had, and that though they weren't perfect, their negligence wouldn't have altered the care each received nor changed the outcome.
That's the problem here. Does the bit of negligence that's been shown so far prove that it would have changed the outcome of a heart attack? There's more information to come, but it would seem that James Woods and his family will have a hard upward climb on this one.
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