Should Heart Attack Victim be a Homocide?

[SteveGrenard]

Friday, September 15, 2006 · Last updated 9:58 a.m. PT

Death in Illinois ER ruled homicide

from: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WAUKEGAN, Ill. -- A coroner's jury has declared the death of a heart attack victim who spent almost two hours in a hospital waiting room to be a homicide.

Beatrice Vance, 49, died of a heart attack, but the jury at a coroner's inquest ruled Thursday that her death also was "a result of gross deviations from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in this situation."

A spokeswoman for Vista Medical Center in Waukegan, where Vance died July 29, declined to comment on the ruling.

Vance had waited almost two hours for a doctor to see her after complaining of classic heart attack symptoms - nausea, shortness of breath and chest pains, Deputy Coroner Robert Barrett testified.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Waiting_Room_Death.html


The State Attorney is sitting on the fence and says they are not legally bound by the decision of the coroner.

Matt Chancey, chief of the criminal division at the state’s attorney office, said Friday the decision of the inquest does not require the filing of charges.

“We’re not legally bound by any decision of the coroner’s jury,” Chancey said.

The inquest convenes to determine “cause and manner of death, ” which is essential for a death certificate, Keller said. He said his office filed a report on the case with the state’s attorney Friday. He also filed a report with the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Chancey said the state’s attorney’s office would review all evidence gathered so far in Vance’s death.

“As a matter of practice, we will review the case,” Chancey said. “We’ll look at it.”
Chancey said criminal charges in a case such as Vance’s would be unusual.
“It would certainly be an extraordinary case,” he said, adding Illinois statute does not provide for negligent homicide charges.

Criminally, he said, there are reckless homicide or involuntary manslaughter options if the state’s attorney chooses to file charges in the matter.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=228421

 

[BPSCG]

Dunno if criminal charges are appropriate, but you can bet the ranch that Ms. Vance's family is taking bids from the personal injury lawyers camped out at their doorstep. If it all shakes out as the news story says (a big "if"), they might end up owning the hospital.

 

[Katana]

If things went down as badly as it sounds, her family should own the hospital. They might give better care.

 

[American]

It should be ruled a kidnapping, rape, and homicide.

Who cares whether charges are accurate, when it's drama that counts.

 

[El Greco]

If it's true that the victim waited for almost 2 hours without receiving any kind of care, then the hospital should better prove that all doctors were very busy looking after more serious cases. Otherwise someone should be made to pay for this. And pay a lot.

 

[Polaris]

Possibly negligent homicide, if we're presented with all the facts here.

 

[ponderingturtle]

If it's true that the victim waited for almost 2 hours without receiving any kind of care, then the hospital should better prove that all doctors were very busy looking after more serious cases. Otherwise someone should be made to pay for this. And pay a lot.

Either way she should have called an ambulance because she would likely have been put on a different track than a walk in. Still chest pain is supposted to be a red flag(in EMS chest pain gets you higher rateing on the critical to stable scale, all chest pain patients are rated as unstable and not potentialy unstable, critical is for things like active CPR and such)

 

[DanishDynamite]

If things went down as stated, a charge of manslaughter should be the least of the hospitals' worries.

 

[JamesDillon]

I think an argument could even be made for second-degree murder, under the depraved indifference doctrine. The hospital has a legal duty to provide medical care, its medical staff is presumably trained to recognize the symptoms of a heart attack-- making the victim wait for two hours (assuming no mitigating circumstances) arguably does demonstrate a depraved indifference to the value of human life. Hell of a civil action, too.

Edit: Of course, one thing that the prosecution would have to prove would be causation-- i.e., that had the hospital acted sooner, the victim would not have died.

 

[Katana]

Edit: Of course, one thing that the prosecution would have to prove would be causation-- i.e., that had the hospital acted sooner, the victim would not have died.

How might one do this definitively? I wonder if autopsy findings could provide evidence that earlier intervention might have spared her life.

Would this burden of proof apply for a civil suit, as well?

 

[JamesDillon]

How might one do this definitively? I wonder if autopsy findings could provide evidence that earlier intervention might have spared her life.

I imagine both sides would call expert medical witnesses to support their position. The coroner's report might well be relevant, depending on what it says. If the coroner concluded that the death was a homicide, he's probably of the opinion that it could have been prevented by earlier intervention.

Would this burden of proof apply for a civil suit, as well?

The element of causation would apply to both criminal and civil actions. The burden of proof would be different-- in the criminal case, the prosecution would need to prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas a civil plaintiff would need only to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence-- i.e., that it is more likely than not that timely medical care would have prevented the death.

 

[Katana]

I imagine both sides would call expert medical witnesses to support their position. The coroner's report might well be relevant, depending on what it says. If the coroner concluded that the death was a homicide, he's probably of the opinion that it could have been prevented by earlier intervention.

Ooops. Dumb question. Thanks for being diplomatic in your answer.

The element of causation would apply to both criminal and civil actions. The burden of proof would be different-- in the criminal case, the prosecution would need to prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas a civil plaintiff would need only to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence-- i.e., that it is more likely than not that timely medical care would have prevented the death.

That's what I suspected.

Thank you!