Jury Awards $1.5 Million After EMTs' Stretcher Tipped Over, Fatally Injuring Plymouth Dialysis Patient
After trial: AMR said it was considering an appeal, and a motion for new trial and remittitur was pending when the verdict was reported in May 2015. We found no report of a ruling, reduction or appeal outcome, so the award is shown as it stood at verdict.
Won by Breakstone, White & Gluck.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury found American Medical Response of Massachusetts negligent in May 2015 after EMTs let a stretcher tip over at a Plymouth dialysis pickup in January 2009. Barbara Grimes, 67, struck her head, suffered a brain hemorrhage and died days later. The jury awarded $1,425,000 for her conscious pain and suffering and $75,000 in wrongful death damages to her three next of kin.
What happened
On January 31, 2009, Barbara J. Grimes, a 67-year-old retiree who lived at a nursing facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, finished a dialysis session at a clinic in town. Two emergency medical technicians employed by American Medical Response of Massachusetts, Inc. (AMR) were to take her back to the facility. As they rolled her stretcher toward the ambulance, it collapsed and tipped over. Ms. Grimes fell and struck her head on the pavement.
She suffered a severe brain hemorrhage. Within days, with no recovery in prospect, she was taken off life support and died. Her brother, Peter Zacarelli, later described the death as senseless and said the technicians were not paying attention as they moved the stretcher.
Her brother brought suit as representative of her estate, together with her siblings as next of kin, in Middlesex Superior Court (No. 2011-044-24-H). Marc L. Breakstone of Breakstone, White & Gluck, P.C. in Boston represented the family. The theory of the case was that the technicians made a careless turning maneuver and did not secure the stretcher's locking mechanism, and that AMR had failed to train and supervise them properly. Two years before the fall, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health had issued an advisory on reducing stretcher accidents, and the family contended AMR received it and never put its recommendations into practice.
AMR defended on two fronts. It admitted the locking mechanism had not been secured but argued the stretcher partly and unexpectedly gave way, shifting Ms. Grimes's weight. It also said it already had a stretcher policy stronger than the advisory and had trained its technicians to follow it. Mr. Breakstone countered that AMR never inspected the stretcher after the fall and that no defect was ever found. In his words, this was an unnecessary death that simple precautions should have prevented.
The case went to trial before Judge Robert B. Gordon and lasted seven days. The jury deliberated about two and a half hours before finding AMR negligent on May 4, 2015. It awarded $1,425,000 for Ms. Grimes's conscious pain and suffering in the days before her death, plus $75,000 in wrongful death damages, split evenly at $25,000 for each of her three next of kin: her brother Peter Zacarelli and her sisters, Patricia Zacarelli and Sheila Cefaratti.
AMR, represented by Barbara Hayes Buell and Gerard A. Butler, Jr. of Smith Duggan Buell & Rufo LLP, said afterward that it was disappointed and was weighing its options, including an appeal. A motion for a new trial and remittitur was pending when the verdict was reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.VerdictSearch New England Verdicts, Zacarelli v. American Medical Response of Massachusetts, Inc., No. 2011-044-24-H, May 4, 2015
- 2.CBS News Boston, 'Family of woman killed in ambulance mishap gets $1.5M', May 6, 2015·Archived copy
- 3.Claims Journal, 'Death of Woman Dropped on Head by Ambulance Crew', May 7, 2015·Archived copy
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