Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A lawsuit has been filed against Morton General Hospital on behalf of an elderly woman who was discharged from its emergency room with two boxes of enemas and a misdiagnosis of constipation and died days later.

Gertrude Tibbetts was taken to the hospital with severe abdominal pain where she was given an injection of pain medication, and an X-ray and then released against her wishes a little more than an hour later.

“She was screaming in agony, stating ‘I can’t believe you are sending me home, you are killing me. No one survives pain like this’,” an attorney for her daughter states in court documents.

The visit to the East Lewis County public hospital was Feb. 26, 2010. Tibbetts, 96, was residing at a Morton nursing home so she and her daughter Jane E. Jones could spend more time together, the attorney wrote.

The attorney stated, when the nurse handed the boxes with enemas to the Heritage House representative, she asked why they couldn’t be administered at hospital. The nurse replied, the lawyer wrote, “What? Do you want a blow out in the van?” and three nurses burst out laughing while Tibbetts was screaming in the background.

The complaint filed in Lewis County Superior Court earlier this month for medical malpractice and wrongful death names the hospital, Dr. Thomas Calderon and three unknown nurses.

Tibbetts was brought back to the hospital the following day when the laxatives were ineffective and then transferred to Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia. There, doctors discovered she was suffering with peritonitis due to small bowel obstruction and perforation as well as kidney failure. She was given comfort measures and died Mar 2, 2010.

“For her age, Gertrude Tibbetts was a remarkable and strong woman who was cognitively bright, and full of life, personality and humor,” the Puyullap-based attorney Talis Abolins wrote.

Abolins alleges the hospital failed when it failed to admit her, and failed to provide appropriate evaluation and care.

“She suffered tremendous pain and suffering, humiliation and fear of her impending death in the hours and days that followed,” the attorney wrote.

Multiple messages left requesting comment from hospital administrators yesterday were unreturned. Attempts to reach Calderon were unsuccessful. The parties have 20 days to respond in court to the lawsuit.

Calderon was informally disciplined by the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission for his evaluation of the patient’s condition.

He agreed to two years of probation and to undertake extra education in exchange for the commission not continuing to pursue charges of incompetence, negligence or malpractice, according to documents filed with the state Department of Health.

The commission alleged that after ordering the shot of pain medication and an X-ray which was unrevealing, Calderon did not perform a subsequent examination of Tibbetts, according to the documents.

The stipulation agreement – signed March 11, 2011 – indicated he should be sanctioned at a level comparable to practicing below the standard of care, related to causing unnecessary pain, stating the failure may not have caused the death since early discovery may not have saved her life.

The doctor did not admit any of the commission’s allegations, but was cooperative, had no previous disciplinary action since being licensed in Washington in 1998 and was released from his probation this past March.

The allegations by the commission note the patient reported her pain level as 20 on a scale of one to 10, while nurses recorded it at 10; and at discharge, the patient described her pain as a seven or eight.

The lawsuit seek damages in an amount to “be proven at trial.”

Among the reimbursements sought are medical bills of about $6,800 from Morton General Hospital and almost $16,000 from Providence St. Peter Hospital.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A 41-year-old Centralia man who uses a wheelchair has filed a claim against the city saying he was attacked and injured by police officers during an incident in a hallway outside his apartment door.

Trygve Nelson was followed into the building where he lives on the 200 block of West Reynolds Street by an officer who was attempting to talk with him regarding calls he had just rode his wheelchair in the middle of the road up North Pearl Street.

Nelson’s claim for damages notes his injuries, his multiple upcoming medical appointments and claims damages in the amount of $400,000. It doesn’t detail what he claims police did – only saying police wrongly attacked him – but a six-page police report from the Centralia Police Department goes into great detail.

Nelson writes the incident occurred on July 2; the police report states it occurred on June 30.

According to the police report, Officer Patricia Finch called for backup after a drunken, angry and cussing Nelson refused to give his name, and stood up from his wheelchair facing her – he is described as 6-feet 4-inches tall and weighing 230 pounds – prompting her to unsnap her Taser – before riding away from her, going inside and slamming his door.

When Sgt. Carl Buster arrived and knocked on the door four times with his flashlight, Nelson exited fast with his hands in the air and said, “What the f***,” according to police reports.

Buster states in his report that fearing he was about to be assaulted, he spun Nelson around and tried to secure him against the wall.

Finch’s and Buster’s reports tell how they tried to gain control of him and he resisted, until he was on the ground and cuffed with a roughly one inch long cut above his left eye. It left what Finch described as a small amount of blood on the floor.

As they walked outside, Nelson allegedly pulled away and grabbed at Buster’s hand, and Buster “escorted him to the ground” again, Finch wrote.

They put a leg restraint on him because he was flailing. He was yelling he had aids, was terminal and they should just kill him, the officers wrote.

This all occurred at an apartment complex owned and operated by Reliable Enterprises, an organization founded in the 1970s to assist individuals with developmental disabilities.

Nelson was bleeding profusely, and said he was on blood thinners as well as heart medication, according to the report.

At one point, he was apologetic, said he was sorry for being an A-hole and that he drank too much after 18 years of abstinence, the report states.

Nelson vomited, medics sedated him and put a tube down his throat.

He lists in his claim injuries to his head, shoulder and knee and notes he has appointments with specialists for spine, for hands and ankles and for blood, as well as his primary physician.

Nelson also claims he was denied medical care while in jail and denied access to his medications. The Lewis County Jail is run by the sheriff’s office, not the police department.

Nelson was at the emergency room for several hours, where a doctor ordered a chest X-ray and CT scan because he was unconscious, according to police.

He was cited for several misdemeanors: disorderly conduct, obstructing a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. However, by the following morning he had allegedly pushed a hospital staff member who was attempting to discharge him, so he was booked into the Lewis County Jail for third-degree assault.

Centralia Police Department Chief Bob Berg said yesterday the police report was rather self-explanatory.

“Claims like this are routinely denied by our insurance carrier,” Berg stated in a written response. “Any comment beyond that would be inappropriate as potential litigation may arise from the incident.”