‘We had no clue’
Dead woman’s kin: Hosp took hours to inform
The family of an elderly woman who died after a coronavirus-related confrontation says the Brooklyn hospital where the violence occurred didn’t call until hours after she died, and never told them what happened.
Janie Marshall’s relatives say they got the run-around from Woodhull Hospital on Saturday, hours after the 86year-old woman went to the emergency department for a bowel obstruction.
At about 3 a.m. Sunday, more than nine hours after Marshall’s death, her sister got a call from a hospital official who said the woman died of “heart failure.”
Marshall’s niece, Antoinette Leonard-Jean Charles, didn’t find out what actually happened until much later Sunday, when she read about it in the Daily News, she said. “The fact of the matter is, we had no clue,” said Leonard-Jean Charles, who lives in Tennessee.
On Monday, the city medical examnier ruled Marshall’s death a homicide, caused by heart disease, with blunt impact injury of head as a contributing factor.
Marshall innocently grabbed a metal stand in a hallway near a bed where Cassandra Lundy, a seizure patient, was sitting around 2 p.m. Saturday, police sources said. The 32-year-old Lundy lashed out, complaining Marshall wasn’t following coronavirus socialdistancing guidelines, and hit her in the head, knocking her to the ground, the sources said.
Hospital police issued Lundy a disorderly conduct ticket and let her go, cops said. Marshall died at 5:40 p.m., and the hospital didn’t contact the NYPD until about 10:30 p.m., cops said. The cause of Marshall’s death was pending further study Monday, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner said. “This is the hospital trying to evade and not be truthful,” Leonard-Jean Charles told the News on
Monday. “If they had handled it appropriately — then this woman [Lundy] wouldn’t be home with her family. I am absolutely completely infuriated that she got an appearance summons, and she beat an 86year-old woman.”
When asked about the family’s allegations, NYC Health & Hospitals spokeswoman Stephanie Guzman cited patient confidentiality, and said the hospital was cooperating with the NYPD.
“All I want is answers. All I want is a clear understanding as to what happened to my aunt and why. And I want Ms. Lundy held accountable if she was the reason why my aunt died,” Leonard-Jean Charles said.
Leonard-Jean Charles has been getting updates over the phone, while her mother, Eleanor Leonard, 74, the daughter of Marshall’s older sister, has been dealing with the fallout in New York, she said. “So you have to understand the wrenching heartbreak that my family is going through,” she said. “It all sits on a 74-year-old woman’s shoulders because I can’t get to New York, and most of my family doesn’t live in New York anymore.”
Marshall was one of the first African-American women to work an accounting job for the Social Security Administration, her niece recounted. She loved gardening, and helped found the Sunshine Community Garden near her Williamsburg home.
“She was never married, she never had any children. But she was that aunt that all of the grandnieces and nephews would go to all of the summer,” Leonard-Jean Charles said.
She was one of 12 siblings, nearly all of whom died before her. “She always told all of us that we have to help people, we should spend more time helping our neighbors than helping ourselves,” her niece said. “She had the most infectious laugh, it’s loud and cackley and you could hear it from a block away. No mater how funny the joke was, if she’s laughing at it we’re all laughing at it.”