According to the Huffington Post, actor James Woods, along with his nephew Peyton, is suing a hospital for the wrongful death of his brother, Michael Woods, 49, who died from heart disease at Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, on July 26, 2006, after going into cardiac arrest on a gurney. At the wrongful death trial, James Woods’ lawyer told jurors that the hospital did not do enough to care for Michael Woods when he went to the emergency room complaining of a sore throat and vomiting in 2006.
According to the attorney, Michael Woods wasn’t seen by a doctor until an hour after he arrived and was initally treated in a section of the emergency room generally reserved for less-urgent cases. The results of an EKG came back abnormal but he was not given oxygen, aspirin or hooked up to heart monitoring to track further deterioration. These procedures are all part of the standard of care in treating someone in Woods’ condition, according to Mark Decof, James Woods’ attorney.
Michael Woods was instead taken for additional X-rays and afterward was left on a gurney in a hallway near a nurse’s station because no room was available. He went into cardiac arrest and died nearly three hours after his arrival at the hospital.
The hospital’s lawyers said that Michael’s symptoms were inconsistent with someone having a heart attack. They said that he tried to downplay his illness by assuring her that he was fine and didn’t need so much attention. Further, the lawyers said that he denied to the nurse that he was having more typical symptoms like chest pain.
Decof said the death could have been prevented had hospital staff recognized Woods’ condition early enough, but lawyers for the hospital say that his heart and arteries were already so diseased that there ws no way to save him and that he died before any potentially lifesaving measures could even have been taken. Woods was overweight, had high blood pressure, an artery severely narrowed by plaque, and also suffered from myocardial ischemia, a condition caused by lack of blood flow to the heart. According to the hospital, they ordered tests and “didn’t rule anything in and didn’t rule anything out.”
Michael Woods, a businessman who lived in Warwick, was also an actor who appeared in several of his brother’s movies and ran twice unsuccessfully for mayor of the city, which is several miles south of Providence.
