According to The Northern Virginia Daily newspaper, Robert J. Eversole II has filed a $2 million wrongful-death lawsuit claiming that his wife died two years ago because a hospital lacked radiologist at night and sent CT images to a teleradiologist who misread them.
Paulette Eversole arrived at the emergency department of Winchester Medical Center (WMC) January 19th 2010 at 8:20 p.m. with “excruciating, unremitting epigastric abdominal pain.”
Doctors ordered scans and sent them to Nighthawk Radiology.
The suit says:
“WMC did not have trained and qualified radiologic health care providers on-site to read or interpret Mrs. Eversole’s CT scans.”
The lawsuit says a Nighthawk radiologist interpreted the 230 images and reported all visceral organs appeared “normal with no acute findings” and that he failed to report Mrs. Eversole’s superior mesenteric artery had closed and her celiac artery had nearly closed.
The lawsuit also says a radiologist of Winchester Radiologist, PC, later evaluated the CT scans of her pelvis and abdomen and evaluated them as “normal.” The lawsuit says in fact the scans showed “evidence of significant vascular pathology of the mesenteric arteries.”
An endoscopy showed blanching of the mucosa of the stomach, the lawsuit says, a doctor ordered a magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA). However, the lawsuit says, the hospital had to delay the MRA because it had “oversedated” Mrs. Eversole despite a warning from her family that certain medications made her unresponsive.
After the MRA was finally performed, the lawsuit says, it showed the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries had closed and the celiac artery had almost closed.
“Upon cutting her open,” the lawsuit says, “there was a foul stench. All of her visceral organs were black and necrotic.”
Mrs. Eversole died on January 22, 2010. The lawsuit contends that negligence caused “critical” delays in her diagnosis and treatment.
