Woman Died After Being Arrested fo Refusing to Leave Hospital

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

... Blountstown hospital's doctors said the 57-year-old woman died from an undetected blood clot.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/woman-died-refusing-leave-hospital-heard-footage-article-1.2489381

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

there were quite a number of bad assumptions, presumptions, and misjudgements made in this unfortunate case...it surely doesn't represent patient centered care...

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3 people have been removed from patient care:Hospital staff removed from duties following Dawson death

At least someone is being held accountable for this. I'm disappointed they did not suspend the treating physician though.

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Specializes in Public Health.

I'm interested to know the circumstances of her "non-compliance" and why she was being removed from the hospital in the first place.

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I'm interested to know the circumstances of her "non-compliance" and why she was being removed from the hospital in the first place.

apparently she was a freq flyer, and they felt she was "good enough" to go.

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Specializes in Public Health.
apparently she was a freq flyer, and they felt she was "good enough" to go.

Sadly I can totally see that happening, especially if she was the type of patient to make false or exaggerated complaints when discharge planning begins. SMDH

Not saying it's right just not so rare.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Float Pool Nursing.

The police weren't the cause of her death, though. Her weight was.

QUOTE:

A doctor who checked her vitals and found that her condition had changed then readmitted her. Hospital staff said Dawson died about an hour later from a clot in her lungs caused by being excessively overweight.

It's one thing to say the police were being overzealous or that the HCPs weren't paying attention, but you can't blame them for her being so fat that her blood clots up.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

It's always hard to determine right and wrong in these stories since there's always so little to go on, but I don't actually think there is any clear evidence the hospital was clearly in the wrong, and unfortunately the patient put herself at risk for how the hospital and police responded.

There are studies that show "difficult" patients and patients with "difficult" family members are far more likely to be the victim of failure to rescue, which appears to be what happened here. It's pretty clear that she was a "high utilizer patient", or what's commonly called a frequent flier. Some frequent fliers have legitimate chronic health problems and get unfairly lumped in with those who are not using system appropriately, but for many others getting escorted out by police is totally appropriate.

From the coverage: Woman refuses to leave hospital despite being discharged, dies shortly after being forced out | Fox 59

"WTXL said incident reports showed police were called by hospital staff multiple times since 2006 in reference to alleged disturbances involving Dawson."

That's pretty impressive even as difficult patients go, if they really mean to say "police" and not just hospital security. For patients without that established history at that facility, suddenly collapsing would be assumed to be a sudden change in medical condition. From the description, she had unfortunately created a situation where collapsing and not responding while being removed by the facility by police wouldn't be all that surprising and likely considered a behavior rather than medical issue.

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The police weren't the cause of her death, though. Her weight was.

QUOTE:

It's one thing to say the police were being overzealous or that the HCPs weren't paying attention, but you can't blame them for her being so fat that her blood clots up.

we don't know that was the reason, we do know it was a possible contributing factor.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Float Pool Nursing.

The quotation I cites said the clot was due to bring excessively overweight. Whatever else contributed to it, her blood clotting up still isn't the fault of the police.

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The quotation I cites said the clot was due to bring excessively overweight. Whatever else contributed to it, her blood clotting up still isn't the fault of the police.

true, just pointing out that the coroner is, after all, a public official, and is likely to cite the most cop friendly cause.

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Specializes in ORTHO, PCU, ED.

Just from reading the media coverage I can tell the story is so skewed. No telling what really happened.

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