By Frank Donnelly
Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A holiday-time tragedy might have been prevented if a Richmond University Medical Center ambulance had not gotten lost or if paramedics had performed lifesaving maneuvers more quickly on a choking victim, a wrongful-death lawsuit alleges.
Graniteville resident Karen Sclafani died on January 7, 2015, at Richmond University, 15 days after she was found “unconscious, unresponsive, not breathing and without a pulse,” after choking in her home on Dec. 23, 2014, contends a lawsuit filed by her husband, Gus Sclafani, against the West Brighton hospital.
A Richmond University ambulance dispatched in response to a 911 emergency call was “unreasonably delayed ... because they were lost in route and/or drove to the wrong location,” alleges a civil complaint.
Because of the delay, Karen Sclafani suffered “stoppage of breathing, lack of oxygen to the brain, lack of oxygen to vital organs, loss of consciousness, stoppage of her heart and cessation of all normal bodily functions,” the complaint alleges.
She ultimately succumbed while in the hospital, alleges the complaint.
The victim was 59 at the time, public records indicate.
The suit, filed in state Supreme Court, St. George, seeks unspecified monetary damages from the hospital and unidentified emergency medical technicians.
Gus Sclafani is administrator of his wife’s estate.
The complaint does not specify what caused Karen Sclafani to choke.
Besides the delay in response, the complaint alleges the EMTs failed to render timely and proper aid once they arrived.
The technicians failed to “perform a tracheotomy or other procedures to restore airflow and/or perfusion to Karen Sclafani’s lungs, brain and other victim organs ..., (and) fail(ed) to timely perform lifesaving Heimlich maneuver or protocol,” contends the complaint.
Perfusion is the passage of blood or other fluid through an organ.
Sclafani’s lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the lawsuit.
William J. Smith, a hospital spokesman, said Richmond University has not yet received the suit papers and could not comment on the allegations.
The lawsuit is the second filed in recent weeks alleging an ambulance became lost while en route to aid a patient, with the delay resulting in the patient’s death.
The wife of Frank Musella, a Sanitation Department sergeant, sued the city, contending an ambulance was delayed in responding to help her 37-year-old husband, who suffered a fatal heart attack while on-duty in Greenridge last year.
That suit is pending in state Supreme Court, St. George.
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