Hospitals delay caused Trumbull man to die of brain injury, suit claims
BRIDGEPORT — The widow of a cybersecurity expert from Trumbull is suing Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale University, alleging malpractice by the hospital’s neurosurgery and anesthesiology teams caused his 2021 death from a brain injury, court documents show.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Jan. 3 in state Superior Court in Bridgeport, is Mary Ramsey, whose husband of 37 years, Mark D. Ramsey, died at age 62. She is suing as executrix of her husband’s estate and on her own behalf, according to her complaint.
Yale New Haven Hospital “is committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation,” a hospital spokesperson said in an email.
Mark Ramsey was taken by ambulance to Bridgeport Hospital on Sept. 25, 2021, with a severe headache, facial droop, unsteady gait and slurred speech, according to the complaint, filed by lawyers with Silver Golub & Teitell. He told medical personnel he had no recent falls or head trauma, the complaint said.
But a CT scan of his head revealed a “subdural hematoma” — meaning blood collected between the brain and the skull — on both sides of his head, and a 4 mm shift to the right of the midline of his brain, the complaint said.
“A midline shift occurs when the pressure exerted by the buildup of blood and swelling around the damaged brain tissues is powerful enough to push the entire brain off-center,” according to the VeryWell Health website.
Later on Sept. 25, 2021, Ramsey was transferred to Yale New Haven, where a neurosurgery team evaluated him in the emergency department and noted that “burr holes” and another treatment should be considered, the complaint said.
Burr hole drainage, the most common surgical procedure to treat chronic subdural hematomas, involves making two holes, each about the size of a quarter, in the skull to drain the blood from the hematoma, according to the UCLA Health website.
No effort was made to proceed with the treatments on Sept. 25, 2021, the complaint said. There were attempts to perform MRI scans of Ramsey’s brain that day and the next, but they could not be completed because he was unable to stay still, the complaint said.
On Sept. 27, 2021, the neurosurgery team ordered that Ramsey undergo an MRI while under anesthesia, the complaint said. The neurosurgeons ordered that Ramsey’s systolic blood pressure — the higher of the two blood pressure numbers, measured when the heart beats — be maintained above 160.
Although a “concerning” new neurological symptom developed on Sept. 29, 2021, the MRI with anesthesia was not done until the next day, the complaint said. It adds that the anesthesiology team did not maintain Ramsey’s blood pressure above 160 during the MRI or afterward, when he was kept sedated.
He underwent the burr hole procedure about 4 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2021, the complaint said. Afterward, when he showed further symptoms of possible brain injury, an “emergent CT scan” of his head showed he had “suffered a severe global brain injury, including an acute brainstem hemorrhage,” the complaint said.
Ramsey’s condition continued to deteriorate over the next day, and he died on Oct. 1, 2021, the complaint said.
A board-certified neurologist, who provided a written opinion required by a state law on malpractice suits, faulted the performance of the Yale New Haven neurological team in several respects, including failing to drain Ramsey’s subdural hematomas “within a reasonable time after arrival in the hospital.”
The neurologist, who is not identified in public copies of his opinion, also says the MRIs performed while Ramsey was anesthetized were inappropriate for several reasons, including that they “would severely limit the ability to detect and prevent severe brain injury.”
In a similar letter, a board-certified anesthesiologist faulted the hospital’s anesthesia team for failing to appropriately monitor Ramsey’s vital signs or to respond appropriately when the signs were not within established goals, among other things.
The anesthesiologist, also not publicly identified, said the Yale anesthesiologists failed to communicate adequately with the neurologists, adding that they should have taken Ramsey off anesthesia to allow monitoring of his neurological status when it was determined that he would not be taken directly from the MRI to the operating room for the burr hole procedure.