Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against OC Paramedics

[CBEMT]

OCEAN CITY – A federal judge this week dismissed a $20 million civil lawsuit filed against Ocean City paramedics in June by the family of two Pennsylvania tourists who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a Boardwalk hotel room in June 2006, stating no “special relationship” was forged during the tragic incident between the defendants and the victims.

In June, Yvonne and Morgan Boughter, family members of the pair of tourists who perished from carbon monoxide poisoning at the Days Inn on the Boardwalk in June 2006, filed suit against the town of Ocean City’s Department of Emergency Services-Fire/EMS Division along with five individual paramedics for allegedly failing to respond to their first 911 call at around 9:43 a.m. on that fateful morning.

According to the complaint, Ocean City EMTs responded to a similar call from a family in two adjacent rooms and rendered treatment and transported patients afflicted with CO poisoning, but never responded to Room 121 where the Boughter family was staying. Two members of the family, Patrick Boughter and his daughter Kelly, later succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, while the surviving family members, Yvonne Boughter and her other daughter, Morgan, were later hospitalized.

http://www.mdcoastdispatch.com/article.php?cid=30&id=7560

http://firegeezer.com/2009/11/27/lawsuit-dismissed-no-special-relationship/

[HERBIE1]

Need more details- like the original call, how many victims were there initially, what were the signs and symptoms, etc, but, based on the passage...

I hate to say it, but if they knew or even suspected the patients they had were CO poisoning victims, these medics DID screw up- at least in a procedural sense. Anyone else in that hotel(or at least in the immediate area) were potential victims as well and that place needed to be swept for CO.

That hotel should have been evacuated.

This was a hazardous materials incident and needed to be treated as such.

[CBEMT]

Need more details- like the original call, how many victims were there initially, what were the signs and symptoms, etc, but, based on the passage...

The two links are the best I've got, they seem to lay it out pretty straight.

[Dustdevil]

Tough call. I have to agree that the individual medics -- while certainly complicit with the clusterfark -- were not individually responsible for it. The ultimate blame lies deeper within the organisation. But this was an MCI. Who was "command"? In the absence of a designated command, that would fall to the first on-scene medic, who is also responsible for triage. Whoever assumed command of the incident would have a very hard time escaping some serious responsibility if I were on the jury. And if there was nobody who assumed command, then this is an epic organisational fail, for which the city and fire chief should bite the big one.