Woman Dies While Begging to Be Readmitted to Hospital

Barbara Dawson had been kicked out, arrested before she collapsed
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 23, 2015 4:47 PM CST
Woman Dies While Begging to Be Readmitted to Hospital
Stock image.   (Shutterstock)

A Florida woman collapsed while begging to be readmitted to a Blountstown hospital she had just been kicked out of, and ended up dead hours later, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. Barbara Dawson, 57, was taken to Calhoun Liberty Hospital via ambulance Sunday night after experiencing stomach pain; the AP says she was also having difficulty breathing. She was admitted, treated, and discharged hours later after hospital staff cleared her. But she refused to go, and insisted to medical staff she was "still not feeling well," her relatives say. Ultimately, police were called—the local police chief says Dawson "was causing a disturbance in the hospital with her language and the volume of her voice," though her family disagrees—and, after Dawson was arrested for alleged disorderly conduct and trespassing, handcuffed, and escorted outside, she collapsed.

She had been "pleading" for her oxygen tank to be returned because she was still having trouble breathing, family members say, but a nurse insisted her breathing was fine. She collapsed just as a police officer was unlocking his patrol car. The hospital says staff checked her vitals multiple times and found her to be stable, but a doctor readmitted her anyway, at which time she still had a pulse. But less than two hours later, she was dead, and her family (her aunt was on the scene) has a different story: Relatives say a doctor couldn't detect a pulse before Dawson was taken back inside the hospital, and that hospital staff didn't try CPR until Dawson was back inside. An autopsy found she died of a blood clot in her lung caused by being excessively overweight. Dawson's family plans to sue the hospital and the police department, but the hospital insists staff "did their best trying to save her." The police department is investigating. (More hospital stories.)

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