Negligence

Poor planning and design along a strip of Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point are to blame for an accident that left two joggers paralyzed, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleged. The complaint, filed on behalf of Carol Daniel and Chris Neria and their spouses, alleges the city is at fault because the road was dangerously designed and lacked safeguards to prevent joggers from being hit by cars. The two women were struck April 8 by a hit-and-run driver.

Several parents and day camp operators said Tuesday that a California Supreme Court ruling allowing recreation providers to be sued for gross negligence even if parents or participants signed a liability waiver is excessive and unfair to providers. "Personally, I think this ruling's wrong," said Robert O'Neill, who was picking up his daughter Emma, 7, from SPF Beach Camp at Santa Monica Beach. "Ours is such a litigious society, and it gets out of control."

A 43-year-old woman who writhed in pain for 45 minutes on the emergency room lobby floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital died of a perforated bowel, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said late Friday. Neither hospital staff nor other patients attempted to assist her as she lay dying.

Firms that supply temporary nurses to the nation's hospitals are taking perilous shortcuts in their screening and supervision, sometimes putting seriously ill patients in the hands of incompetent or impaired caregivers. Emboldened by a chronic nursing shortage and scant regulation, the firms vie for their share of a free-wheeling, $4-billion industry. Some have become havens for nurses who hopscotch from place to place to avoid the consequences of their misconduct. An investigation by the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times found dozens of instances in which staffing agencies skimped on background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about sub-par nurses on their payrolls.

In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer. "Thanks a lot, officers," an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. "This is her third time here." The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain.

The Medical Board of California has accused a Beverly Hills fertility doctor of a pattern of gross negligence that led to the birth of Nadya Suleman's 14 children, including the world's longest-surviving octuplets, and created a "stockpile" of unused frozen embryos which serve "no clinical purpose." The 13-page accusation filed in December against Dr. Michael Kamrava paints a picture of 11 years of medical care in which Suleman returned to Kamrava's office again and again to undergo fertility treatments.

If life were fair, Israel Feldman and Orit Mor would have stood side-by-side today under a chupah, vowing in a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony to love each other till death took them apart. Instead, the couple died two weeks ago today along with four friends--three of them siblings--aboard a small plane that Feldman was piloting when it slammed nose first into the ground in Lancaster with such force that there was little of it or its passengers left to salvage.

Eleven California hospitals were fined $25,000 each in administrative penalties Thursday for violations that, in some cases, led to death or serious injury, according to Department of Public Health officials. Most of the hospitals fined were in Southern California, and about half were cited because doctors or hospital staff had left foreign objects in patients after surgery. Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital in Norwalk and Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center were fined for failing to follow proper surgical procedures.

A tragic collision of rural poverty, limited hospitals and mountainous isolation has left a baby dead and the emergency room doctor who failed to recognize the child's lethal condition facing trial this month for murder. Long regarded as a blue-collar Lake Tahoe, this rural outpost reached only by winding, mountain roads is a budget vacation spot for those who want to water ski, fish and guzzle beer.

A recently hired plumber was sent into the bowels of the Orleans hotel and casino last year to unplug a sewer pipe in a large grease trap -- an assignment that would be his last. The hotel had no permit or training program to allow plumber Richard Luzier to enter a confined space where he might inhale poisonous sewer gas. He had no breathing apparatus or emergency rescue harness -- all routine precautions. Luzier fell 12 feet and landed face down in fatty sewage.

State officials have fined 13 California hospitals for medical errors that in some cases killed or seriously injured patients, according to a report made public Wednesday. California Department of Public Health officials have required hospital officials -- who may appeal the fines -- to submit plans to correct the problems. Three hospitals in Los Angeles County face penalties. Los Angeles Community Hospital in Norwalk was fined $50,000 in connection with the death of a patient in May who was supposed to be restrained and supervised, but was instead left to repeatedly pull out his tracheotomy tube until he was found unresponsive in his bed. Hospital staff referred questions to spokeswoman Ellen Shin, who did not return calls.

The Medical Board of California has accused a Beverly Hills fertility doctor of a pattern of gross negligence that led to the birth of Nadya Suleman's 14 children, including the world's longest-surviving octuplets, and created a "stockpile" of unused frozen embryos which serve "no clinical purpose." The 13-page accusation filed in December against Dr. Michael Kamrava paints a picture of 11 years of medical care in which Suleman returned to Kamrava's office again and again to undergo fertility treatments.

Firms that supply temporary nurses to the nation's hospitals are taking perilous shortcuts in their screening and supervision, sometimes putting seriously ill patients in the hands of incompetent or impaired caregivers. Emboldened by a chronic nursing shortage and scant regulation, the firms vie for their share of a free-wheeling, $4-billion industry. Some have become havens for nurses who hopscotch from place to place to avoid the consequences of their misconduct. An investigation by the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times found dozens of instances in which staffing agencies skimped on background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about sub-par nurses on their payrolls.

Kaiser Permanente, the state's largest nonprofit HMO, has been ordered to pay a former Valencia middle school administrator $5 million after its physicians misinterpreted signs of an impending stroke that left him partially paralyzed and disabled for life. An infection related to his subsequent treatment led to the amputation of both his legs. A panel of three arbitrators ruled Nov. 18 in favor of Timothy Howard, who said Kaiser physicians were negligent for failing to properly diagnose the cause of his episodic blindness, headaches and other complaints.

Eleven California hospitals were fined $25,000 each in administrative penalties Thursday for violations that, in some cases, led to death or serious injury, according to Department of Public Health officials. Most of the hospitals fined were in Southern California, and about half were cited because doctors or hospital staff had left foreign objects in patients after surgery. Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital in Norwalk and Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center were fined for failing to follow proper surgical procedures.

Veronica Glaubach told her father to wait until the week after she gave birth before flying to California from Buenos Aires to meet the baby. When the infant was a day old, however, Roberto Glaubach was told to come immediately. Veronica was brain-dead. The cause of her 2002 death was complications from pre-eclampsia, a relatively common condition in pregnancy that can be fatal if not treated promptly. Roberto Glaubach has spent years and more than $100,000 seeking to hold someone responsible.

In the midst of delicate eyelid surgery in April 2006, a patient who was supposed to be sedated yelled that the drugs weren't working. Plastic surgeon Iraj Zandi turned to nurse Jennifer Bales: "Are you sure you gave me Demerol? Show me the bottle!" Later, staffers checking the Fremont surgery center's drug locker found hairline cracks around the tops of vials of the painkiller. Bales, they later learned, had removed the drugs in all but two of the vials, then refilled them with saline, Zandi said.

He was once the handsome entrepreneur in the fading newspaper article on his bedroom wall -- a former nurse running a temporary nurse agency. Today Spencer Sullivan, 48, spends his days in a wheelchair at his Laguna Hills home. In 2001, after neck surgery at UC San Francisco Medical Center, two doctors gave similar orders for powerful medications. Instead of questioning the duplication, a nurse gave Sullivan all of the drugs, then didn't check on him as required, state records allege.

A school bus driver has been charged with felony child neglect for allegedly doing nothing to stop three teenage boys from terrorizing female students on his route. Court documents say Terry Burch, 67, of Portage failed to prevent physical abuse to the girls or failed to report it. The documents filed Friday also say Burch did nothing when the three boys -- two 17-year-olds and one 16-year-old -- threatened Burch and others, exposed their genitals on the bus, exposed their buttocks to passing motorists, ignited a flammable body spray and created other disruptions.

A 22-year-old man with cerebral palsy spent a frigid New Year's Eve alone on a school bus after a caretaker left him there, police and his family said. Police found Edwin Rivera in a bus yard in the morning. He had been on the bus for 19 hours as the temperature outside dropped below 20 degrees. Rivera, who cannot speak, was being evaluated at a hospital but was expected to recover. Authorities arrested 51-year-old Linda Hockaday, the bus matron responsible for looking after him, on a charge of reckless endangerment.