CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA— A 56-year-old paraplegic, filed suit against a skilled nursing facility, Diablo Valley Post Acute, in Concord, CA, which gave him a cup of toxic wound care fluid, rather than water, to drink with his daily medications.
Court filings state that the incident happened on the first morning of what was to be Mr. Sharp’s 6-week post-surgical recuperation at the facility. But his stay was cut short when the staff gave him a cup of Dakin’s solution (a caustic antiseptic intended for external wound care) with his morning medication. Sharp washed down a handful of pills with about 6 ounces of the clear fluid and immediately became ill. He experienced burning in his mouth and throat which he immediately reported to the staff. As the burning spread to his stomach, Sharp told his attendants that he had been poisoned, and asked them to call an ambulance. The lawsuit states that for three hours the staff ignored the bed ridden Sharp’s repeated pleas for emergency medical care as he endured burning in his mouth, esophagus, and stomach.
The lawsuit, filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court by the Law Offices of Goforth & Lucas, on behalf of Stephen Sharp, alleges negligent hiring, negligent supervision, and reckless neglect of a dependent adult, against Concord SNF Healthcare, LLC, dba Diablo Valley Post Acute, and its parent company Providence Group NH, LLC.
“No patient in any skilled nursing facility should have to endure drinking a toxic liquid instead of water,” said Michael D. Goforth, attorney for Sharp. “Following their mistake, the employees further endangered my client’s health by denying his requests for an ambulance to get him to a hospital for poison control.”
The lawsuit states that during the hours following Sharp’s ingesting the caustic fluid, the staff member who provided it to him told him that she was “sorry”, but did not divulge to him what she had given him. Nor would any of the employees call 911 to summon an ambulance. It wasn’t until they learned that Sharp had asked to borrow his roommate’s cell phone to call 911, that they called EMS techs who evacuated Sharp to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Walnut Creek, where, according to EMS records, Sharp arrived about four hours after he swallowed the toxic liquid.
“The staff’s reckless actions violated a core duty of trust owed to vulnerable people who rely on them for protection,” Goforth added. “Their decision to conceal the truth from Steven, and then deny him urgently needed medical help, was oppressive and morally indefensible.”
Sharp is seeking compensatory damages for personal injuries, emotional distress, and punitive damages to hold the defendants accountable and to deter such reckless conduct from happening again.