CT widow, estate win $5.5M in medical case. There was ‘abdominal catastrophe and his death’: lawyer

A Connecticut man’s estate was awarded $5.5 million after his complaint of diarrhea ended in a ruptured intestine, sepsis and a fatal heart attack, according to a recent jury’s decision.

The attorney representing his estate and his widow said surgery to treat a lack of blood flow to his intestine would have saved his life.

Felix Mejia, 69, went to Stamford Hospital ’s Emergency Department on Sept. 18, 2018, complaining of diarrhea and cramping, saying he had not been eating and had lost weight, according to the lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Stamford.

The suit, filed by his wife, Angela Cadavid, against Emergency Medicine Physicians of New Haven County , Dr. Ryosuke Ito and Vanie Mangal, a physician assistant, alleged wrongful death for negligence, not providing Mejia with proper diagnosis and care.

Stamford Hospital was not ultimately a defendant in the lawsuit.

“On the first day (Sept. 18, 2018), they diagnosed him with something called traveler’s diarrhea, which is essentially an infection of your intestine, because he had just been in Colombia, where he’s from originally,” said Michael Kennedy of Kennedy Johnson Schwab & Roberge , who represented Mejia’s estate and Cadavid. Mejia was told to see his primary care doctor.

Four days later, he returned to the hospital, where imaging showed he had chronic mesenteric ischemia, Kennedy said, “though that diagnosis was never made, and he was ultimately discharged from the hospital on the 22nd,” he said.

Chronic mesenteric ischemia occurs when the blood supply fails to meet the demands of visceral organs, usually resulting in acute pain, according to the National Library of Medicine .

The lawsuit says Mejia’s superior mesenteric artery, a major vessel that supplies blood to the intestine, was constricted.

Chronic mesenteric ischemia, Kennedy said, is “a heart attack of your intestines.” The vessels supplying blood to the intestines become narrowed through plaque buildup, and the bowels do not get the amount of oxygen needed.

Eventually, “the tissues start dying,” Kennedy said. “And when that happens, it can be a catastrophic event for a patient. The intestine can perforate and lead to bowel contents going into the abdomen, cause septic shock and ultimately a patient’s death, and that’s exactly what happened to Mr. Mejia.

“Our claim was that he should have remained in the hospital at that time, that Dr. Ito and P.A. Mangal had failed to make a diagnosis of chronic mesenteric ischemia, failed to appreciate the seriousness of the condition and that he needed to remain in the hospital or at least obtain a vascular surgery consult in the emergency room to determine what treatment he needed and how quickly he needed it,” Kennedy said.

A vascular surgeon would have recommended a procedure “to repair some blood vessels providing blood flow to his intestines on an expeditious basis,” he said.

“But, unfortunately, when he was discharged, he just continued to have those gastric symptoms — nausea, vomiting, diarrhea — and his condition only worsened,” he said. “By the time he comes back three days later and it’s finally diagnosed, he’s in such a worse position that it’s going to take longer to get him ready for that procedure he needed and ultimately he never made it.”

“We claimed that had he been treated on the 22nd and remained in the hospital and had that endovascular procedure to provide better blood flow to his intestines, he never would have progressed to the point where on the 27th his bowel perforated and led to what was in the records as an abdominal catastrophe and his death,” Kennedy said.

The jury awarded $4.5 million to Mejia’s estate and $996,667 to his widow.

“There was no claim that they were bad doctors or bad people,” Kennedy said. “In fact, we told the jury throughout the day that was not the case, just that on this day they happened to make a mistake that ultimately was catastrophic for Mr. Mejia.”

Fred Trotta of Halloran Sage , who represented the defendants, declined to comment.

“Our clients are very happy with the verdict because it has validated how they felt about the care that was provided to Mr. Mejia,” Kennedy said.

“And then what they’ve tried to prove over four years of litigation, most importantly, that hopefully it’ll make some changes,” he said.

Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com .