Nursing Home Negligence, Wrongful Death
A resident in a nursing home facility, who developed a bowel obstruction that prevented him from having a bowel movement and caused extreme pain, asked the nursing facility to send him to the hospital for emergency assistance. The staff in the nursing home denied his request.
Our client then called 911 and requested an ambulance. When EMS arrived, the nurse at the facility sent them away and would not allow treatment of our client. Our client then began throwing up bowel materials and feces. Sometime later, the nursing home staff found him unresponsive and called 911. When the EMS ambulance arrived, our client was dead.
We identified a number of experts who would testify in this case, including an emergency medicine physician, geriatrician, nurse administrator, nurses, gastroenterologist, surgeon, and radiologist.
An insurance company and a number of defense lawyers who routinely defend nursing home facilities disputed the liability of the case. The nursing home only had liability insurance of $1 million, but also had a self-insured retention of $100,000, which served to reduce the amount of available insurance coverage. The settlement for our client was fully collectible.