Settlement won't take away pain

A stroke victim and his wife win money from the hospital and the doctor they sued, but their lives remain shattered.

By JAMIE MALERNEE

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 16, 2000

Back in the bedroom of her Spring Hill home lies her sleeping husband, Dominick, who will soon need his wife to give him medication, change his diaper and carry his partly paralyzed, 167-pound body to the shower.

This is Bella Lanzar's reality. Her life is "until death do us part," she says. The man who was her protector for almost 40 years is gone. He walked into Oak Hill Hospital in January 1995 complaining of stroke symptoms and, after receiving little medical care and improper medication, his wife says, was wheeled out a man unable to stand, talk or chew.

Now Bella Lanzar is her 62-year-old husband's protector, and nothing, not even the $1-million settlement the couple received Monday from one of the doctors they blame for his condition, can change that, she said.

"It's devastating," said Mrs. Lanzar, 60. "We moved to Florida to have a better life, an easier life after our children were raised. Two years later, this happens. He can't walk; he can't talk; he can't write. I hope somehow these doctors will be held accountable. I don't want anyone to suffer like he has -- like I have."

According to the Lanzars' lawsuit against Oak Hill Hospital and two of its doctors, Lanzar suffered a mild stroke and was not prescribed the proper anti-coagulant medicine often given to stroke victims when he arrived at the emergency room. Instead, Lanzar was prescribed an aspirin treatment, a spinal tap and further testing to determine the nature of his stroke.

Through a still-unexplained breakdown in communication, Lanzar never received any of this treatment either, the lawsuit states. After going overnight without seeing a doctor and complaining of a severe headache, Lanzar received an unprescribed narcotic from a nurse. Minutes later, he had a second stroke, which resulted in severe brain damage and left the right side of his body paralyzed, records state.

Along with Oak Hill Hospital, the lawsuit names Dr. Joseph Williams, a Spring Hill neurologist, and Dr. Robert Ebert, Lanzar's primary physician, as defendants. Williams settled with the Lanzars for $1-million Monday. The hospital and Ebert settled last week for an undisclosed sum. Lawyers for the hospital and Williams did not return phone calls for comment.

Howard Hunter, attorney for Ebert, said his client was an unwitting player in Lanzar's second stroke. According to records, Ebert says he consulted Williams, a specialist with more knowledge of stroke treatment, about what drugs to prescribe. Williams was supposed to oversee further treatment and testing, he said.

But the lawsuit said he never did. Lanzar spent the night in the hospital for monitoring but never saw a doctor and complained of an ever-increasing headache. A nurse, who thought he had been prescribed aspirin for the headache instead of the stroke, gave him a stronger narcotic the next morning, thinking it would help ease the pain, records state. Instead, Lanzar began having a seizure soon after.

Hospital officials called Williams to alert him of Lanzar's second stroke, but he did not show up until seven hours later, said Wil Florin, Lanzar's lawyer.

After the incident, Williams denied ever being called by Ebert about Lanzar's case, saying he didn't know anything about it. This statement contradicts Ebert's testimony and the testimony of another emergency room physician, as well as medical documents that show Williams had signed paperwork saying he had talked to Lanzar the day before his second stroke.

Mrs. Lanzar said she blames Williams the most for her husband's condition. While the amount she received in a settlement with Oak Hill and Ebert is confidential, the amount Williams paid the couple is not. And that's for a reason, she said.

"I wanted that doctor to have to pay the maximum of his malpractice insurance policy," she said. "That way, he couldn't say he settled out of court to save money."

But Mrs. Lanzar also blames herself, especially every time she sees her husband break down in frustration, sometimes crying, sometimes swinging his one good arm in anger when she tries to help him, at his inability to take care of himself. He called her three times the night he was in the hospital, telling her he was not being treated, she said.

"I didn't believe him. I said you must have fallen asleep when he came in to check on you," she said. "I mean, he was in a hospital. In a hospital you don't expect someone to go untreated for 21 hours after being in the ER. I didn't call to find out. And I'll always have to live with that guilt."