Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Since his companion’s death more than a year ago, Jack Rode has become the homemaker. Although paralyzed since childhood, Donna Wendt did the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping.
Published Sunday, June 27, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012 | 2:16 p.m.
Her Life, His Heart
Viewing video requires the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player
Donna Wendt had her windpipe accidentally torn open at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center, leaving behind her grieving companion of 28 years, Jack Rode. This is his story, in his own words.
Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas
- Prologue: A breakthrough in transparency
- Reporting is the first of its kind in Nevada
- Health care can hurt you
- Accident took her life, his heart
- Fall proves fatal for elderly patient
- Inadequate care, unspeakable pain
- Scarred for life by mistake in surgery
- Where I Stand: Fascination and frustration in reporting on Las Vegas hospital care
- Editorial: Preventing harm
- Health care leaders discuss Sun report’s findings
- St. Rose Dominican Hospitals to post data on quality
- State presses hospitals for full accounting of preventable injuries
See the results
Share your stories
As a couple, Jack Rode and Donna Wendt made quite the visual impression.
He’s built like a bear — big belly and big personality.
She had been paralyzed from the chest down since age 7 and was so small she fit in a child’s size wheelchair.
Rode and Wendt were deeply in love for 28 years but never married. Tying the knot would have taken away her thousands of dollars a month in benefits from Medicare, the government’s insurance for disabled adults. The couple had two children, now adults, and a playful back-and-forth banter that started when he flirted with her at a bingo game, stealing her popcorn.
“I fell in love with her the first time I saw her,” he said.
Wendt died March 13, 2009, after an accident at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center. Her windpipe was torn open when a breathing tube was inserted, causing oxygen to be pumped into her body instead of her lungs.
According to the Clark County coroner’s report, Wendt’s death was accidental, caused by “respiratory insufficiency” — her lungs didn’t get enough oxygen or expel enough carbon dioxide to meet the body’s needs. The death was attributed by coroner officials to the tracheal injury and subsequent organ infection caused by the insertion of the breathing tube, the report said.
Now Rode aches with loneliness and burns with anger toward Dr. Eric Dennis, the physician who inserted the breathing tube. He was aloof about the accident, Rode says, when he should have apologized. Now he’s suing the doctor. (See addendum at the bottom of this story.)
“All he had to do was say, ‘Look, I screwed up,’ and we wouldn’t have to go through this fight,” Rode said.
Wendt was 56 when she died and had been totally independent. She took care of the house, had a hot meal every evening for Rode, who is a union worker, and loved riding her electric wheelchair to a nearby Arizona Charlie’s to play bingo.
She entered Sunrise on March 7, 2009, complaining of abdominal pain and, in intensive care, went into respiratory failure, requiring the placement of a tube into her lungs to assist breathing.
According to a physician’s assessment of the case, prepared for the plaintiff, Dennis intubated Wendt, causing a severe laceration to the trachea, which resulted in a chest infection that caused her death.
“The manner in which she was intubated, causing such a severe tear, does not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence,” the expert wrote. “But for the negligent intubation of Donna Wendt, she would not have died.”
Neither Dennis nor his attorney returned requests for comment for this story.
It’s unknown whether Sunrise officials reported the incident to the state’s Sentinel Events Registry, which records incidents of patients being harmed while hospitalized because the information is confidential under Nevada law.
Sunrise officials would not comment specifically on the case, saying only that disciplinary action is taken when warranted in accordance with its confidential peer review process. The hospital uses such experiences to try to improve, officials said.
Rode said the torn trachea was not immediately detected, allowing air to be pumped into Wendt’s chest cavity for about 24 hours. Her body became so bloated that an air blister grew on her forehead, Rode said.
“She looked like me when I saw her — like a balloon, full of air,” he said, pointing to his rotund belly.
During surgery to repair the tear, doctors tried to place a stent to block the rupture — but it slid through the hole and into her body, where it could not be recovered, according to the coroner’s report.
The hospital wanted to attribute the death to “natural causes,” Rode said, but the coroner’s office concluded it was accidental. Rode believes the type of negligence he’s alleging should be considered manslaughter.
“I want to put him in jail,” he said of the doctor.
Rode and Wendt enjoyed buying and fixing up old homes. They had finished remodeling their kitchen to be wheelchair accessible just before her death. He shows off the amenities. The countertops are low. The dishwasher is raised so she could scoot her wheelchair underneath the door to load dishes. The drawers all pull out for easy access.
Once it was clear she would not recover, Rode was the one who told Wendt she wasn’t going to survive. He thanked her for their time together, for their kids, and promised that their grandchildren would never want for anything and that he would always keep them safe.
He doesn’t even know if she heard him when he said it.
She died about 10 minutes later.
In the medical negligence lawsuit brought against Dr. Eric Dennis, a Clark County District Court civil jury on July 18, 2012 found in favor of the doctor.
What a tragic story. My heart goes out to Mr. Rode and his family. What an ordeal to go through. For the doctor to show no responsibility or remorse is sickening. My prayers are with you and your family sir.
"He was aloof about the accident"...This doctor's arrogance p*sses me off. Mr. Rode and family: I am deeply sorry for your loss.
People think that having anything taken care of in Las Vegas is ok? Hell No - "Get the hell out of Dodge". Need to have anything serious taken care of go East or go West, but not here.
Glad the Republicans pushed through the pain and suffering cap.
Why does it always have to become political?
My condolences to the family - such a shame that this had to happen :(
I hope Mr. Rode finds some happiness in his children & future grandchildren.
This is horrible for his family, these doctors nowadays seem to have no liability to their patients. It is time to start holding the medical community 100% accountable for their actions/ or mis actions. They are all getting off way to easy, and at the same time overcharging for less than adequate care. I hope that this hospital who killed his wife did not then turn around and bill Mr. Rode for services rendered, I wouldn't pay it.
I have read about & heard about too many cases in the news lately, something must be done.
I really do feel for the family experiencing this tragedy. No one should ever lose a loved one so soon. That being said, however, I believe there is much more to the story that is not out yet. I have known Eric Dennis personally and professionally for a good number of years. I knew him when he was a marine pilot, I knew him when he started med school and when he came to Vegas to work at Sunrise.He is THE most honest, consciencious, caring doctor I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. His ethics, personal standards, diligence and continuous strive to be the best makes him tops in my book. I would trust not only my life in his hands, but also the lives of my loved ones, including my most precious baby boy. No matter who you are, your ethnicity, your values or beliefs, Dr. Dennis gives you all of himself, heart and soul, to improve your life. I will give you, there are a few bad apples in the medical proffession, but not this man. He is stellar. Stay strong my friend.
She had been paralyzed from the chest down since age 7 and was so small she fit in a child's size wheelchair. I can tell you that if she spent a lifetime in a chair she had more than respitory problems. Her size was the problem with putting a tube in without difficulty.
Rode and Wendt were deeply in love for 28 years but never married. Tying the knot would have taken away her thousands of dollars a month in benefits from Medicare, the government's insurance for disabled adults. The couple had two children
Wendt was 56 when she died and had been totally independent. She took care of the house, had a hot meal every evening for Rode, who is a union worker.
It enrages me to see two people abuse the system like these two have. He a union worker and she totally self sufficient and able to get a job. I had a aunt who was totally chair bound who her whole life, worked in a office until she was 82 years old. These two people defrauded the system, had two children out of marriage, he more than likely judging from his size has not worked much. no doubt living off of her benefits. Now he looks to profit and make us the tax payer pay. I am sorry for his loss, but they worked the system from both sided and got caught in the system. He should have provider her with insurance that would have given her better care.
This article bring tears to my eyes, but not for the reason you may think. Do I feel empathy towards a man who lost the woman he loved? Of course - no one can argue the pain someone feels when a loved one dies. However, to take that anger out on the physician who's only fault was to be responding to a respiratory emergency, is what makes me so angry that it makes me cry. This is the reason that hospitals fight so hard to keep the "adverse outcomes" out of the media - because it is twisted so far from the truth and leaves out so much pertinent information - that no one would ever feel safe in a hospital again! Here are some truths to this article that were not there to be read.... 1. When a physician is called to intubate a patient because of respiratory failure, it means that the patient's lungs are no longer functioning for themselves. 2. When lungs are not functioning, death is inevitable. 3. When any life-saving medical procedure is done, there are risks involved. For instance, when CPR is done, ribs are more than likely going to be broken. Is this then something the family can sue over, or is it just an incidental thing that happens when trying to save a life? 4. People with chronic medical problems - especially so severe that they are wheelchair bound and grossly underweight - are far more likely to have complications from medical procedures simply from the frailty of their body.
This patient would have died without this physician attempting intubation. The end. By his attempt, he bought her a few more hours of life which she would not have had if no intervention had been done.
To add a personal note, I have worked with Dr. Dennis for 5+ years. I have seen many physicians come and go... some good, some not so good.... but to this day I have not met one physician who I would trust with my life, my husband's life, my child's life, more than I would trust Dr. Dennis. I stand by him 150% as do the other staff members who work with him. The quote of him being "aloof" is a bold-faced lie, which makes me question the integrity of the reporter and make me all the more angry to read this article.
To those of you who read this article and hear only one side - please re-consider because you are grossly mistaken. Please remember there are two sides to every story - and this one is hardly the one to believe.