Attorney in lawsuit says patient deserved to die ‘peaceful death’

Shaunta Grimes

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999 | 11:08 a.m.

Henry Puckett, 67, was a two-pack-a-day smoker for 50 years. By 1994 he had developed a cancerous tumor in his throat and had a tracheotomy tube that allowed him to breathe.

On July 4, 1994, the tube slipped out at Valley Hospital and Medical Center, and he died as nurses worked to save his life.

This week a District Court jury will decide how much his widow should be awarded as a result.

A Valley Hospital lawyer on Tuesday conceded that hospital workers erred when first one nurse and then several nurses attempted to replace Puckett's tracheotomy tube after it had slipped out of his neck during cleaning.

"There was error and we concede there was error," Valley attorney Sherman Mayor said during his opening statement Tuesday in Judge Gary Redmon's court.

But, Mayor added, Puckett was within two to four weeks of his death anyway.

Puckett had been admitted to the hospital June 17, 1994, so that a feeding tube could be inserted into his stomach in the hope that he could gain enough strength to withstand chemotherapy.

In the weeks after the tube was placed, his weight dropped from 96 to 90 pounds, Mayor told the jury. He could not eat because of the tumor in his throat; his body would not absorb the calories being put directly into his stomach. Puckett's cancer was starving him to death, Mayor said.

He may have been weeks from death, countered Sam Harding, attorney for Puckett's widow, Rosie, but with hospice care those last weeks could have been comfortable, and he could have died peacefully.

"Mr. Puckett, during the last hour of his life, had nurses over him and a hysterical wife. He died of asphyxiation," Harding said. "Mr. Puckett ... did not die a peaceful death."

Harding told the jury during his opening statement that Rosie Puckett tried to give the nurses a tracheotomy kit when her husband was admitted on June 17, 1994. The nurses would not take the kit.

A tracheotomy kit includes a guide to help insert the tube into a slot cut into the patient's neck. The guide puts a round ball on one end of the tube, allowing for smoother entry into the neck. Without a guide, Harding told the jury, the metal tube with rough edges does not go smoothly into the slot.

The nurses did not have a guide, although they were required to have one in the patient's room when cleaning the tube, Harding said. Without a guide, nurses spent more than an hour trying to force a metal tube with unprotected, sharp edges into Puckett's neck, Harding said.

During the time that nurses were attempting to replace Puckett's tube, Rosie Puckett was on the telephone trying to reach one of her children to bring a guide from home, he added.

Rosie Puckett insisted a doctor be brought in after nurses had worked on her husband for an hour and a half without calling for one, Harding said.

"If you want to know what it felt like for Mr. Puckett, breathe for half an hour through a straw," Harding said.

Harding said the nurses had assumed that Puckett did not want to be resuscitated in the event of his death, because at one time that notation was on his chart. Sometime during his stay at Valley Hospital he changed his mind, and at the time of his death his chart read that he wanted measures to be taken to keep him alive.

"Mr. Puckett wanted to live," Harding said.

Harding said Rosie Puckett also deserves compensation for the anguish she experienced watching her husband die by asphyxiation.

The trial resumed today and is expected to last through the week.