Tag Archives: hospital

Utah Woman Nearly Killed by Toxic Tea

Enjoy this refreshing beverage with caution…

A few short months ago, Jan Harding was almost killed after she drank iced tea that was mixed with chemicals. Harding drank a single sip of sweetened iced tea at Dickey’s Barbecue in South Jordan, UT and stated, “I think I just drank acid”. After investigation authorities confirmed, “A restaurant employee unintentionally put the heavy-duty cleaner lye in a sugar bag, and another worker mistakenly mixed it into the iced tea dispenser. Lye, which looks like sugar, is an odorless chemical used for degreasing deep fryers”. The restaurant quickly reassured consumers that Harding was the first and only to drink from this botched batch of iced tea, and no one else was harmed. Other allegations have arisen  of incidents with this particular chemical in this restaurant chain, Dickey’s has not provided comment.

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Woman Dies Trying to Escape Morgue

Frozen alive

No one expects to find themselves trapped in a morgue freezer while they are still alive. “A California family who claims a loved one was prematurely declared dead, and then “frozen alive” while trying to escape a morgue freezer, has filed a lawsuit against the hospital”. In 2010, 80 year-old Maria de Jesus Arroyo was pronounced dead from a heart attack at White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights, CA. At this time she was laid out for her family to pay their respects, then was put in a body bag and taken down to the hospital morgue. She was then placed in a refrigerated compartment, awaiting pick up by the mortician; this is where the nightmare began. Read More

Dead End Taxi

Death cab

Imagine waiting for someone you love dearly to arrive and when they do, you open the door to the taxi and they are dead. Sounds terrible, right? Well, that is was happened to a mother from North Carolina, Deborah Washington, who found her son A’Darrin Washington, “unresponsive and cold to the touch,” when he arrived home in a taxi.  A’Darrin Washington was discharged from Cumberland County Hospital and died on Nov. 22, 2011 at the age of 30 and was a patient of the hospital for 10 years. Ms. Washington is suing the security firm whose guards are accused of forcibly removing her son from a hospital even though he was allegedly dying or possibly already dead. Read More

Two Recent Negligence Settlements from Public Service Mistakes

Justice

Everyone makes mistakes, even those whose sworn mission is to protect and serve or to do no harm.  Two settlements were announced this week that demonstrate exactly that.  In Brooklyn, New York, a woman whose doctors’ negligence resulted in the amputation of her arms and legs was awarded $17.1 million.  In Tallahassee, Florida, the negligence of the police concerning a woman who was murdered during a botched drug sting operation led to a $2.4 million settlement for her family.  In both these cases, the professionals in charge, the ones whose judgement is awarded a certain amount of trust, made bad decisions that led to unfortunate consequences.  Everyone makes mistakes, but the law in general isn’t there to prevent that.  Rather, the law and the court system are intended to pursue justice among an otherwise ambivalent world.  And so, the silver lining: in Florida, a new regulation, called “Rachel’s Law” after the woman in question, was enacted to train policemen better and set up new guidelines in the use of criminal informants.

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