Woman’s Sons File Suits Over Fatal Mistake: 82-Year-Old Dies After Being Given Drug Intravenously at City Hospital
By Cheryl Powell, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
Mar. 2–The sons of a woman who died from a medication error at Akron City Hospital filed court actions this week seeking damages and an order changing her cause of death from accidental to homicide.
The Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Victoria O. Baker, 82, of Akron, died on March 2, 2005, from an accidental overdose through an intravenous line of a drug called potassium phosphate.
Baker was supposed to receive the drug through a feeding tube — not an intravenous line — before undergoing tests while hospitalized at City Hospital for gastrointestinal discomfort, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Summit County Common Pleas Court.
The medical examiner determined that the overdose through the IV line resulted in cardiac arrhythmia, a potentially fatal condition in which the heart beats abnormally, according to the cause of death report.
“We acknowledged at the time of the event and continue to acknowledge that an unfortunate, unintentional medication error led to the death of Ms. Baker, for which we remain deeply sorry,” Summa spokesman Mike Bernstein said.
But Akron attorney David P. Drew, the administrator for Baker’s estate, and her sons, Clark and Gary Nobil, are seeking a court order directing the Summit County medical examiner to change the cause of death to homicide from cardiac arrest — the sudden, abrupt loss of heart function.
In a related suit, Baker’s sons and Drew also are seeking unspecified monetary damages from City Hospital’s parent company, Summa Health System, as well as from the doctors, nurses and other employees they allege were involved.
“There has been ample evidence that the nurse, at the very least, acted recklessly in killing my mother,” said Clark Nobil, an Akron native who lives in South Florida.
The suit names registered nurse Kristen Toot, doctors James Gannon and Todd Lisy, and other yet-to-be-identified people, including a doctor and pharmacist.
According to the suit against Summa and several health-care workers, registered nurse Toot used a syringe to inject the medicine into Baker’s IV line “without authorization and contrary to accepted medical practices.”
The packaging for the medicine clearly indicates it shouldn’t be given through an IV line, Drew said.
The medicine “causes immediate death if it’s given intravenously,” Drew said. “Within seconds, she gasped, turned blue and died.”
Toot, who no longer works for Summa, wasn’t fired, said Bernstein, the hospital system spokesman.
Summa, however, did take “appropriate steps with any person who was involved in the medication error that led to the death,” Bernstein said.
He declined to discuss the disciplinary steps that were taken for privacy reasons.
However, to make sure a similar accident doesn’t happen again, Bernstein said, Summa stopped using the liquid form of the medicine and now uses syringes that can’t inject the drug into an IV.
Toot could not be reached Thursday for comment. The named doctors also couldn’t be reached.
All along, Drew said, the family has asked the medical examiner to talk to everyone involved and conduct a more thorough investigation into Baker’s death.
“We don’t know if it was a mistake or on purpose or recklessly,” he said.
But Bernstein insisted the death was not intentional.
“Any allegation that this was anything other than human error, that this was anything other than an unfortunate medication error, is absolutely false,” he said. “It was a mistake, and we truly are very sorry that it happened.”
Summit County Medical Examiner Lisa J. Kohler said on Thursday that she has not received notification of the lawsuits yet and therefore can’t say how she will proceed in the case.
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
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