As reported by the Associated Press (AP) on May 28th of this year, the family of Esmin Green has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the City of New York after their loved one died June 19th of last year while lying prone on the tiled floor of a waiting room at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn.According to an AP report posted on the MSNBC website May 28th 2009, Green had been made to linger in a waiting room at Kings County Hospital for nearly 24 hours when she collapsed to the floor on the 19th of June last year. Video surveillance tape of the incident shows the African-American woman slowly slumping towards, then falling hard to the floor between two banks of seats in a waiting area of the psychiatric emergency room.
As the video shows, the woman at various times thrashes about in obvious distress, then lies prone for about on hour from the time she slumped to the floor at 5:32am on the morning of June 19th 2008, to the point when help finally arrive about an hour later. By that time the woman could not be saved. AP reported that the medical examiner assigned to her case revealed the woman suffered from blood clots.
The family's wrongful death case hinged on the surveillance video, which shows various other patients in the waiting room and the presence of two security guards whom, at separate intervals during the fateful hour, witnessed Green lying on the floor and did nothing. At a later interval a doctor, according to the surveillance video which was posted at MSNBC.com and shown on the TODAY Show, wanders into the waiting room and begins to approach the woman lying prone on the floor. However, instead of checking to see if the woman is either just sleeping or was in some degree of distress, the doctor just walks away.
According to the TODAY Show the doctor shown in the video was fired and the two security guards suspended. The Associated Press reported May 28th that a total of six hospital employees lost their jobs as a result of the wrongful death. The two top administrators at Kings County were replaced and the hospital added 200 medical personal to its existing complement of 600 staff members.
The video, which was made public, sparked national outrage.
According to the AP story a US Department of Justice report cited Esmin Green's wrongful death among other abuses, characterizing and documenting a pattern of what investigators identified as "inadequate care," violence among patients and even sexual abuse at the Brooklyn facility.
Prior to the addition of medical staff the average wait time for patients at the psychiatric emergency room was 27 hours. With the addition of 200 new medical personal, the wait time is now said to be about eight hours, according to Alan Aviles, the president of New York's Health and Hospitals Corporation.
Aviles said the settlement with the Green family was "not meant to put a value on a life and the loss of a loved one.
READ MORE WRONGFUL DEATH LEGAL NEWS
Even though the family of Esmin Green has settled with the City for $2 million, their legal representatives report that the family is still awaiting a full investigation into what happened that fateful night in June of last year, when their loved one was allowed to wait for nearly 24 hours in a waiting room, then to slump onto the floor and slowly die in full view of hospital staff.
As wrongful death lawsuits go, this alleged wrongful death was dramatic in that surveillance video allowed for the viewing of the death as it happened. Dramatic evidence indeed for the wrongful death attorney—but painful to watch nonetheless.