December 6, 2005  

Prisoner's care at root of wrongful-death case

Tuomey, 3 doctors, jail and health care provider all accused in lawsuit

By Crystal Owens
Item Staff Writer
cowens@theitem.com

Jurors are expected to begin hearing testimony today in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of the Rev. Ronel Huggins, who died four years ago in the former Sumter County Correctional Center after being arrested in the Tuomey Regional Medical Center waiting room for indecent exposure.

The suit, filed in 2003 in the Sumter County Court of Common Pleas by Virginia H. Fisher on behalf of Huggins' estate, named as defendants Tuomey physicians Luis Muniz, Martha Cushman and Richard Alexander; the hospital itself; the jail now known as Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center; and Eastern Health Care, the agency contracted by the prison in 2001 to provide medical care for its inmates.

The family is seeking unspecified damages. The trial is expected to last two weeks before 3rd Circuit Judge Howard P. King.

Fisher is being represented by Georgetown-based attorney Edward Bell of the Bell, Elliot & Phelan law firm, which also has a Sumter office.

According to Bell's opening statements, Huggins, a 43-year-old clergyman and pastor at Oaks AME Church in Summerton, was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the late 1980s and was required to take medication. In the mid 1990s he was also diagnosed with diabetes.

The mixture of his medications sometimes caused Huggins to have attacks, Bell said, lasting several days or weeks until he was able to get the prescriptions adjusted.

Huggins reportedly told the hospital staff on Dec. 23, 2001, that he had diabetes and had not eaten all day.

Bell said Huggins' physician that day, Muniz, never looked at the patient's medical history and eventually discharged him.

Huggins, the plaintiff's attorney said, still wore a hospital gown and sat there not knowing what to do. A security guard, he said, eventually noticed Huggins and mentioned to the medical staff that he thought Huggins had a mental condition, but the patient eventually left for the night instead.

The following day, Bell said Huggins returned to the hospital after he was found walking down the street "restless" with a blood sugar level of 189. He was given medication and sent home.

Huggins returned to the hospital that night with a blood sugar level of 254 and asked to be admitted, the attorney said.

He was reportedly sent home again after being advised by Alexander to take his medication and go for a Dec. 27 mental health screening.

By 4 a.m. Dec. 25, Huggins returned to the hospital again, Bell said, and was seen there by a friend.

At 11 a.m. that day Huggins returned to the hospital and sat down in its emergency waiting room where he started taking off his pants before being arrested and taken to jail where he was put in a drunk holding tank naked, Bell said.

Huggins, he said, died in a cell alone about 12:15 a.m. Dec. 27. He was found about 2:25 a.m. by the jail staff lying face-down, Bell said, and rigor mortis had already set in.

"He died on a tile floor with no one to care for him, no one thinking of him," Bell said.

The attorney described the case on Monday as "the death of a man ... that was profoundly mistreated."

The defendants in the lawsuit, Bell said, violated their own policies, which included never leaving a mentally ill patient unattended; screening inmates at the prison for such problems; and providing 24-hour medical care for the jail, among others.

S. Jahue Moore, attorney for the three emergency room doctors, contends his clients did everything they could to ensure Huggins was properly treated.

"The evidence will show that my clients did not do anything that in any way contributed to Mr. Huggins' death," he said.

When Huggins came into the emergency room on Dec. 24, Moore said Dr. Cushman reviewed his medical records and found no emergency from a diabetic standpoint.

Huggins, he said, had Type II diabetes, which can be easily controlled by medication. He also said a person can go without the medication if the situation arises.

Moore said Huggins is believed to have died from ketoacidosis, a state of absolute or relative insulin deficiency aggravated by ensuing hyperglycemia, dehydration, and acidosis-producing derangements in intermediary metabolism. The most common causes are underlying infection, disruption of insulin treatment, and new onset of diabetes.

"He couldn't die from this in a two- to three-day period," Moore told jurors.

When Huggins returned about 4:30 p.m. Dec. 24 Moore said his complaint was that he "just didn't feel well and I'm restless."

Huggins, he said, was treated then by Alexander, who reviewed all prior tests and found again that he was not in an emergency state and could not be admitted to the hospital. The patient, he said, was discharged about 9:30 p.m. with an advisement to take his medication and go for his follow up exam with the state Department of Mental Health.

"There's no way these doctors could do anything with him but discharge him," Moore said.

Huggins' family, he said, did not accompany their loved one during any of his visits to the hospital.

Charlie Hill, who represents Tuomey, told jurors Huggins' arrest on Dec. 25 was justified under the circumstances.

On that day, Hill said Huggins, who didn't appear to be in distress, returned to the hospital but did not check in or alert the staff that he was in the waiting room. The three doctors named in the suit, he said, were not working on that day.

"He could have been looking for a family member or could have just been looking for a warm place," Hill said.

Huggins, he said, exposed himself about 11 a.m. with several people present, including two girls. The hospital's security guards, Hill said, covered Huggins with a hospital gown after trying to get him to cover himself.

Hill said during several attempts by the guards to find Huggins' family he exposed himself again in the waiting room.

"Eventually a family member from Camden came, but by that time he had been arrested," he said.

Jim Davis, representing Sumter County on behalf of the prison, told jurors in his opening statement that it's not the detention center's job to provide medical care. The facility, he said, is required to hold inmates and observe them.

He said Huggins would not respond to officers at the prison and was not booked because of that. Instead Huggins was put in an observation cell and placed on a watch.

"His condition stayed the same from the jail's perspective," Davis said.

Bill Hopkins, attorney for Eastern Health Care, said the nurse assigned to the jail was never informed that Huggins had been seen at the hospital nor did she know anything about his treatment for diabetes.

The nurse, he said, was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and was never contacted by the jail.

"Folks, they can't act on what they don't know," Hopkins said.

The first time the nurse learned of Huggins, the attorney said, was when she was summoned for a bond hearing on Dec. 26.

There the magistrate judge, Hopkins said, gave Huggins' sisters an opportunity to take him home, but they refused, saying they couldn't control him. The sisters, he said, never mentioned to anyone in the court their brother's diabetes.

The nurse, he said, even said in court that day that it sounded as if Huggins needed a mental health exam and attempted to schedule one, only to find that one was already set.