$15 Million Verdict After a Paramedic Put in Earbuds and Fell Asleep While a Cardiac Patient He Was Supposed to Be Monitoring Called for Help
After trial: HEMSI publicly stated it would not appeal the verdict.
Won by Marsh, Rickard & Bryan.
A Limestone County jury awarded Gloria Owen $15 million after finding that a HEMSI ambulance crew, including a paramedic with an undisclosed history of drug use who fell asleep instead of monitoring her husband, failed to respond as Robert Owen suffered a heart attack during a routine hospital-to-hospital transfer.
What happened
On April 23, 2019, 81-year-old Robert Owen needed a non-emergency ambulance transport, from Huntsville Hospital to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, so specialists could evaluate him for a cardiac procedure. He was a stable patient making a roughly 100-mile ride that should have been routine. HEMSI, Huntsville's emergency medical services provider, assigned paramedic Jacob Steele and driver Calvin Hui to the transport.
Steele had a documented history of substance abuse. He had been fired by HEMSI in March 2019 for reckless ambulance operation and rehired within days. A complaint later filed on the family's behalf would document twelve separate incidents in which Steele was found incompetent or unfit for duty, and noted that HEMSI had not drug tested him since August 2018 despite that record.
Partway into the trip, dashcam video showed Steele, then driving, swerving and drifting out of his lane. He and Hui switched positions, putting Hui behind the wheel and leaving Steele in the back of the ambulance with Owen, the position responsible for monitoring a cardiac patient during transport. Instead, Steele put in earbuds, turned on music, propped his feet up on Owen's stretcher, and fell asleep.
Owen began suffering chest pain that radiated into his arm, shoulder, and jaw, the classic signs of a heart attack, and called out for help. Steele, asleep, did not respond. Hui eventually became aware something was wrong, pulled the ambulance over, and administered medication, but did not wake Steele to resume monitoring Owen and continued driving without cardiac monitoring in place for the rest of the trip. Owen arrived at the Birmingham hospital in deteriorating condition and was admitted to intensive care. He died eleven days later, on May 4, 2019.
Gloria Owen, his wife of nearly 58 years, sued HEMSI, Steele, and Hui in Limestone County Circuit Court. David Marsh, Rip Andrews, Ben Ford, and Ty Brown of Marsh, Rickard & Bryan represented her, with local counsel John Totten. HEMSI argued that Owen's extensive pre-existing cardiac history, not anything that happened in the ambulance, caused his death. The jury did not agree. On May 23, 2024, it returned a verdict of $15 million, the first verdict over $1 million in Limestone County history.
HEMSI said afterward that it would not appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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