Oct 24, 2008 7:31 pm US/Eastern
Ambulance Co. Accused Of Hastening Woman's Death
Family Of Lillie Berry Tells CBS 2 HD Ambulance Workers Dropped Elderly Woman On Her Head, Resulting In Strokes
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Ambulance workers drop a Long Island grandmother … and it's caught on tape. Now, her family is blaming the ambulance company for the sick woman's turn for the worse -- and ultimate death.
Every day ambulances help keep people alive, but this ambulance company is being blamed for helping do just the opposite.
"They were negligent," granddaughter Angie Berry said. "She fell, she hit her head. Nobody reported it."
Fortunately, surveillance video captured it all. It was back in March when Lillie Berry was lifted out of the ambulance and dropped onto the pavement. Ambulance employees quickly picked her up and brought Berry, who was unable to speak from a previous stroke, into the hospital for her routine dialysis treatment.
"When she got back home I noticed a bruise on her head, so I called the ambulance, the people that transported her back and forth, and asked them what happened and they said, nothing had happened," daughter Annese Berry Bickam said.
The mother of seven would go on to suffer from routine seizures.
"In and out of the hospital … after the fall, she was in there more than she was home," Berry Bickam said.
Berry died in August, prompting a wrongful death lawsuit claiming the Medical Express Ambulance Corp.'s carelessness led to Berry's fall which in turn, "Hastened, exacerbated her death, made her quality of life more difficult, resulting ultimately in her death," attorney Andrew Siben said.
At the company, CBS 2 HD ran into road blocks trying to find answers.
CBS 2 HD: "Are you acknowledging something went wrong?"
Ambulance company employee: "I can't make any comment."
No one was talking but in court papers it claims: "... our investigation revealed that no event took place which caused any injury."
The family said it still doesn't know if anyone at this company was ever held accountable for what happened, and that this lawsuit is their only way to get some answers and some justice.
"How do you sleep at night by yourself?" Angie Berry said. "Everybody has a conscience … everybody."
Some, it appears, more than others.
The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the next few weeks. It doesn't ask for any specific dollar amount.
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