Hospital, doctor cleared in death

Kim Smith

Tuesday, May 14, 2002 | 9:40 a.m.

A Clark County jury found Monday that Sunrise Hospital and a local doctor did not contribute to the death of a 14-year-old girl in 1995.

Las Vegas residents Al and Barbara Lewis sued the hospital and Dr. Marc O'Connor alleging their daughter, Erika, died after being left untreated in the emergency room for several hours in November 1995.

"I just know it's not right," a tearful Barbara Lewis said after the verdict was announced. "What they did just wasn't right."

The Lewises' attorney, J.R. Crockett, said he would appeal.

Kim Mandelbaum, who represented O'Connor, said only that she was "pleased" with the verdict.

The trial was held as the debate heats up over the correlation between doctors' insurance rates and medical malpractice lawsuits.

Many Nevada physicians have seen their medical malpractice insurance rates skyrocket in the past six months after a major insurance company pulled out of the market.

Some believe that if the state enacts limits on damages awarded for pain and suffering, doctors' insurance rates will go down.

According to Clark County District Court records, 62 medical malpractice cases went to trial during a five-year period ending in October. More than $41 million was awarded as a result of those trials.

In Monday's case Erika Lewis was diagnosed with lupus at the age of 7 and developed numerous other medical problems as a result, including kidney failure that resulted in the need for dialysis.

The girl, 50 pounds when she died, was continually in and out of the hospital in the months leading up to her death.

An autopsy revealed Erika Lewis died as a result of sepsis and lupus.

Dr. Carl Grushkin, a pediatric kidney specialist, testified that the girl should have been given fluids and antibiotics immediately upon her arrival at the hospital.

Carrie Toneck, a registered nurse, told jurors that while vital signs should be taken every hour, only one set of vital signs were noted in the girl's charts over a period of several hours.

"It is very much a concern, because the most important thing going on with Erika were these erratic vital signs," Toneck said.

During closing arguments Friday, Mandelbaum and fellow defense attorney Scott Johnson told jurors that those who treated the teenager were guilty only of not practicing "cookbook medicine."

Johnson noted several instances when O'Connor and other staff members treated the girl successfully in the two years before her death. In each instance a team of specialists associated with the case were called to render their opinion and the same was true the day she died, he said.

"It's all in the records," Johnson said. "All of these health care professionals, all of them, were struggling to help this young lady."

Crockett told the jury that Lewis should have been provided medicine, but "the modern medicine stayed in the bottle that day and that was the difference from all of the other days they want to talk about."

Following the verdict, Crockett said he believes the jury's verdict may set a scary precedent: a defense that the patient would have died anyway.

"This case was about whether patients are entitled to good medical treatment in the emergency room even if the odds are against recovery," Crockett said.

Now medical professionals can "defend their actions by saying the patient was probably going to die of their illness or injury anyway," he said.