Kane hospital sued over veteran’s death

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The son of a Battle of the Bulge veteran has filed a federal wrongful death suit against the John J. Kane Regional Center in Scott, saying the nursing facility staff dropped his father and reinjured his broken hip, leading to surgery and a decline in his health that killed him.

Marc Arteritano of Carnegie is seeking damages against Allegheny County and the Kane center for the death of his father, Dominick Arteritano, a native of Vandergrift and a World War II veteran who died May 22, 2017. He was 96.

The county had no comment.

Marc Arteritano said his father broke his hip in a fall at home Feb. 12, 2017, and was treated at St. Clair Hospital. The injury was treated conservatively and the elder Mr. Arteritano went to a rehab center and then home. He was later sent to the Kane center in Scott on March 16, 2017, for physical therapy.

Sometime between then and March 25, according to the suit, the staff at Kane dropped him on a toilet seat while moving him.

Marc Arteritano said Kane initially said his father was fine, but he later learned that the fall had been severe enough to break the toilet seat and that the impact had reinjured his father’s healed hip.

The suit says a Kane staffer who went with the elder Mr. Arteritano to see his surgeon admitted that she may have injured him in trying to move him into a wheelchair.

He was admitted for surgery at St. Clair on March 31, 2017. After the surgery, he went to another care center for recovery, but suffered renal failure and other complications.

The suit blames Kane for “substandard care” that ultimately caused Dominick Arteritano’s death.