https://www.foxnews.com/us/cou...-dead-cannot-be-sued

Published July 27, 2023 7:32pm EDT
By Sarah Rumpf-Whitten | Fox News

A federal court ruled that first responders are immune from a civil lawsuit accusing them of violating a woman’s civil rights after they mistakenly declared the young Michigan woman dead.

Timesha Beauchamp was not exposed to a "private act of violence" after paramedics stopped providing emergency medical services, and her estate cannot bring a wrongful death action against the first responders or the City of Southfield, Michigan, a panel determined.

Beauchamp, a 20-year-old Detroit woman with cerebral palsy, was pronounced dead by first responders, placed in a body bag by a funeral home employee, and transported to the James H Cole funeral home on August 23, 2020.

EMTs were called to Beauchamp's home after her caregiver noticed that she was not "fully responsive." Once first responders arrived, four first responders attempted CPR and ventilation using a bag valve mask.

After about half an hour, the EMTs discontinued their efforts to resuscitate Beauchamp and declared her dead. They also called a doctor to obtain permission to stop resuscitation efforts, although they had already stopped more than five minutes before receiving permission, the ruling said.

The ruling said "multiple indicators" showed that the 20-year-old was still alive - despite first responders declaring her dead.

The ruling noted that Beauchamp's capnography indicated continued respiration, her cardiac monitor showed electrical activity, and family members noticed her continued breathing and pulse. Despite these indicators, first responders said that she was dead.

A funeral home employee who came to the home to collect the body then placed Beauchamp in a body bag.

She was reportedly in a body bag for two hours until an embalmer opened the body bag and discovered that the 20-year-old was still alive and "gasping for air with her eyes open and her chest moving up and down."

Beauchamp was taken to a nearby hospital and placed on a ventilator, but died from an anoxic brain injury six weeks later on October 18, 2020.

After Beauchamp’s death, Howard Linden, the administrator of her estate, sued the City of Southfield, Michigan, and the individual emergency medical workers for violating Beauchamp’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights.

The plaintiff argued that the first responders’ treatment of Beauchamp amounted to a "state-created danger" that resulted in "a private act of violence" against her.

In June 2022, a federal judge dismissed constitutional and due process claims brought by Linden and granted the paramedics’ request for qualified immunity.

The estate appealed, and the case was argued before a three-judge panel in June 2023.

U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Gibbons wrote that it is "hard to see" the plaintiff's theory of "state-created danger."

"It is hard to see how it could be ‘clearly established’ that the first responders exposed Beauchamp to a private act of violence when they mistakenly believed she was dead and left her in her family’s care to be processed for routine funeral proceedings, which included the funeral home employee’s act of putting Beauchamp’s presumed-dead body into a body bag to transport her to a funeral home," Gibbons wrote.

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^^^Emphasis in bold is mine.

Strange case, both legally and medically.

IANAL, but from reading that part of the 14th Amendment, I find the claim that girl's "Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights" were violated is very thin. Probably would have been successful, if they had sued for malpractice. How the heck do you declare someone dead, when there was still respiration? Just plain dumb.

Medical wise, it surprised me to read that, instead of load-and-go with CPR in progress on the way to ER, they stayed and went through the motions for 30 minutes, then declared her dead. Never heard that before. When I was doing ER many years ago, calls we received were always CPR in progress. When they were handed over to us, either we will succeed in reviving them, or we eventually pronounced them. Never had EMT/paramedic folks calling us for permission to declare them dead on the field, after doing CPR right there for so long. Strange.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
IANAL, but from reading that part of the 14th Amendment, I find the claim that girl's "Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights" were violated is very thin. Probably would have been successful, if they had sued for malpractice. How the heck do you declare someone dead, when there was still respiration? Just plain dumb.

Medical wise, it surprised me to read that, instead of load-and-go with CPR in progress on the way to ER, they stayed and went through the motions for 30 minutes, then declared her dead. Never heard that before. When I was doing ER many years ago, calls we received were always CPR in progress. When they were handed over to us, either we will succeed in reviving them, or we eventually pronounced them. Never had EMT/paramedic folks calling us for permission to declare them dead on the field, after doing CPR right there for so long. Strange.

I think they have the constitutional claim right. Things can be abhorrent but not a violation of your rights.

I'm a cop, not a medic, but I've seen a half an hour of CPR on scene terminated and the patient declared dead. Almost always on non-witnessed arrests where somebody (family, bystander, cop, etc) initiated CPR. In my experience, they're not calling it until they've pushed IO epinephrine and probably running a 12 lead ECG. Our local ambulance service is all paramedic level and relatively well equipped and experienced. Both fire and EMS have Lucas devices.

I would be curious what level of training the EMTs had and how much experience with cardiac arrests. I also would point out that in many places, EMS is staffed by volunteers and often underpaid even when it is a paid service. In many areas it is privatized which can reduce oversight and accountability. In my state, EMS is not considered an essential service (like police and fire) and government employed providers (EMTs and paramedics) do not receive the same retirement benefits law enforcement and fire do (they get what teachers do).

I have been out of being a first responder for a long time now. My last CPR training goes back to the late 90s long before there were AEDs everywhere.

Back in the day when we were taught CPR we were taught once you start you keep going till a Doctor tells you to stop. This was after the Doctor examined the victim. The only other way we were taught you could stop was if you and your crew are physically unable to continue for what ever reason.

I am not sure how things have changed these days, this was also back when I lived in New Jersey.

The federal court would not retain jurisdiction over the state law claims once the Sect. 1983 claims are dismissed.

quote:

The ruling noted that Beauchamp's capnography indicated continued respiration, her cardiac monitor showed electrical activity, and family members noticed her continued breathing and pulse. Despite these indicators, first responders said that she was dead.

Also known as "I'm tired. Isn't it about time for lunch?"

Not a lawyer but this seems like a wildly valid lawsuit, just without the constitutional element. How about suing for being shitty/incompetent/killed her/malpractice at their only job?

Plus all I know about medicine is from watching old reruns of ER but don’t Dr’s declare you dead?

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Not a lawyer but this seems like a wildly valid lawsuit, just without the constitutional element. How about suing for being shitty/incompetent/killed her/malpractice at their only job?

Plus all I know about medicine is from watching old reruns of ER but don’t Dr’s declare you dead?

Yes, but they don't necessarily need to be there. Our medics will call the local ER (level 1 trauma center), talk to a doc, and have the doc declare remotely. As I mentioned in my earlier post, there are generally considerable interventions attempted for a fairly long time at that point or they are obviously deceased (cold, rigor, lividity, decompensation, obvious suicide, etc.)

I suspect that this case will stand out in the EMS community as a cautionary tale.

I’ve been retired for a year now…but was a medic for 30 years. Many moons ago it was standard practice to transport to the local ED if you started CPR…..those times have changed about 10 years ago where the medical community decided to allow medics to presume death in the field with radio communication with the ED doc AFTER having preformed ACLS (multiple rounds of appropriate medications IV/appropriate defibrillation/intubation,etc.) If no improvements were obtained with all those procedures/drugs AND the individual had no signs of life…such as electrical activity on the ECG let alone actually breathing as this case…then you were done…saving resources for the next call.
From the article, sure sounds like they done fucked up! I would think a malpractice lawsuit would have served the family better but the laws vary by State. This type of event is not unheard of, I’ve seen it happen in my State as well.

It sure sounds like they “remotely” left out a bunch of pertinent details to the Dr then. This sounds like an Abbott and Costello skit not a medical event.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

The ruling noted that Beauchamp's capnography indicated continued respiration, her cardiac monitor showed electrical activity, and family members noticed her continued breathing and pulse. Despite these indicators, first responders said that she was dead.

Also known as "I'm tired. Isn't it about time for lunch?"

This information isn't as damning as it may appear to the lay person.

1) Capnography is now frequently used during CPR to help determine the effectiveness of CPR. Even without the patient breathing, good CPR creates air exchange and will be picked up by capnography. It doesn't prove the patient is breathing as the article claims.

2) The cardiac monitor showed electrical activity... okay, what kind of electrical activity? Only certain rhythms can be shocked. VFIB and PEA (pulseless electrical activity) is electrical activity with zero perfusion. After a few minutes of VFIB or PEA, the patient is dead and not recovering. CPR can increase the likelihood of recovery (possibly even up to 15 minutes of a non-perfusing rhythm at normal temperatures), but they were performing CPR for 30 minutes.

3) Family members noticed her continued breathing and pulse? What kind of breathing? Gasping? Agonal breathing? I've seen agonal respiration in people with asystole (no cardiac electrical activity), many people mistaken that as "breathing," but it's not, it is merely a brainstem reflex. When did they notice the pulse? If a family member was really in the action with the medics, how did they notice a pulse? Active CPR can make you feel a pulse that is generated by the CPR, not the heart.

I'm not defending the medics, I'm just saying these "indicators" aren't necessarily the indicators this article claims they are. If medics showed up and found an unresponsive person with no pulse, no breathing, and performed CPR for 30 minutes without their AED/defibrillator detecting a shockable rhythm, most medical directors would be comfortable calling it.

Sounds to me like they pronounced after 20 min of resusitative efforts with a non-viable rythym (asystole/PEA) that failed to result in ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation). This is standard throughtout most EMS systems- we do not transport dead bodies to ERs anymore.
Where this crew messed up is failure to account for history of cerebral palsy which may crate difficulties in exams for respirations and pulse. The ETCO2 reading should have been a big clue that this patient was still viable. Truly dead people dont have waveforms or significant etco2 readings.

Ive had someone get ROSC right as we called our base hospital to pronounce.
Long story short- male 70s dropped at home after getting off flight saying he couldnt breathe, wife calls 911- he stops breathing soon after. Home is wayyyyy up a canyon road, took us 15-20 min to arrive. Wife did cpr approx 10-15 min on her own, we took over and worked him up 20 min or maybe a but more, no pulse no respiration, PEA on the montior below rate of 20. Hospital gave permission to call it, we stopped cpr and started detaching everything, one guy did a last pulse check maybe a minute later and felt a very very faint pulse. We quickly resumed cpr and hooked him back up, rate is now 50-60 sinus brady with lots of PVC. We load him up and get going, he went into VFIB twice during the 20 min ride to ER with 2 shocks delivered. Got full ROSC in ER but he was brain dead in ICU later. Our CPR efforts were good enough to perfuse all his organs and his family donated them. Turns out he threw a Pulmonary Embolis (lung clot) which led to hypoxia and arrest.

So some good came from it, but yeah we had pretty much given up. Shit happens.

Yeah, I can see these making a comeback

Safety Coffin

Ray Milland in: Premature Burial (‘62) scared the bejesus out of me when I was a kid.