Late last week a jury agreed to a “nearly $4 million verdict…in the case of the wrongful death of a mother of three,” Garylyn Langell. In handing down the verdict, the jury agreed that “an ER doctor was culpable in Langell’s 2011 death,” not her family physician. In addition to the verdict, the jury “awarded past economic damages at $490,000, and past non-economic damages at $3.5 million.” But what happened? How did Langell die, and what role did the ER play in her death?
Late last week a jury agreed to a “nearly $4 million verdict…in the case of the wrongful death of a mother of three,” Garylyn Langell. In handing down the verdict, the jury agreed that “an ER doctor was culpable in Langell’s 2011 death,” not her family physician. In addition to the verdict, the jury “awarded past economic damages at $490,000, and past non-economic damages at $3.5 million.” But what happened? How did Langell die, and what role did the ER play in her death?
It all began back on September 15, 2011, when Langell visited Port Huron Hospital Emergency Room complaining of a severe pain between her shoulder blades that radiated throughout her chest. After being checked out by Dr. Michael Paul, she was diagnosed with “musculoskeletal chest pain and sent home.” The next day she was still experiencing severe pain, according to the lawsuit, and decided to visit her primary care physician, Dr. Timothy Horrigan. Horrigan disagreed with Paul’s diagnosis, and instead diagnosed Langell with mid-back strain and spasm. Again, she was sent home to suffer until the morning of September 18, 2011, when she “was found dead in her home.” According to the autopsy report, her cause of death was “a ruptured aortic dissection with left hemothorax.”
[Correction: the family was represented by J. Kelly Carley of McKeen & Associates, not Brian McKeen] Managing partner Brian McKeen said:
“Langell presented herself to Port Huron Hospital Emergency Room with classic symptoms for a dissecting aortic, a rare, but life-threatening condition that is easily ruled out through a simple chest CT scan…Had a simple test been ordered, Langell’s condition would have been treated and she would be alive today.”
In addition to naming Paul as a responsible party in Langell’s death, the verdict also applies to Physicians Healthcare Network, according to Christine Snyder of Marx Layne and Company. She added in an email that the judge on the case “ruled that Paul was not an agent of the hospital.”
When asked to comment on the verdict announcement, the attorney for Paul and the Physicians Healthcare Network did not immediately respond.
As for Langell’s family? Fortunately, they’re pleased with the announcement. Her son, Sam Langell, even expressed his family’s happiness over the verdict. When discussing his mother, he said, “she was an extraordinary person to me and everybody else…Every day we think about her.”
Langell was 47-years-old at the time of her death.
What do you think? Is it fair that her primary care physician was essentially let off the hook? Was her death preventable?
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