On July 7, 2014, Sarah Crayton, a retired postal employee from Bridgeview, drove herself to the University of Chicago for an appointment with a heart specialist.
The 61-year-old woman had a host of ailments and was experiencing shortness of breath but still expected it would be “a routine doctor’s appointment,” according to her daughter, Shamona Nichols.
But the doctor ordered a test in which an artery was damaged, and the woman ended up dying days later from internal bleeding, according to Nichols, who filed a medical malpractice lawsuit.
In May, a Cook County jury awarded Nichols $3 million in her case against the University of Chicago Medical Center and the cardiologist who did the test.
Under a post-trial agreement reached Monday, the award was reduced to $2.6 million, the hospital agreed to forego any appeal, and the doctor was dropped from the settlement, according to James E. Coogan, Nichols’ lawyer.
Neither the hospital nor the cardiologist, Dr. Mardi Gomberg-Maitland, would comment. Gomberg-Maitland recently took a job as director of the comprehensive pulmonary hypertension program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Nichols says the verdict showed “the jury believes what I believe” and that the finding in her favor “is when I started getting some closure.”
For 33 years, Crayton worked for the U.S. Postal Service, most recently as a customer-service manager. Diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension in addition to multiple other medical conditions she already faced, including lupus, she was referred to Gomberg-Maitland at U. of C.’s pulmonary hypertension clinic.
“She went in for a routine doctor’s appointment, and she ends up in the hospital,” says Nichols, now living in Texas, who was living in North Carolina and working in Indianapolis at the time.
After the test, Nichols says, “Literally, she bled to death.”
At the cardiology appointment, Crayton couldn’t finish a six-minute walking stress test, according to trial testimony.
The doctor admitted her to the hospital and ordered a cardiac catheterization the next day — in which she threaded a tiny tube through a blood vessel in the groin to the heart — to get a better sense of how it was functioning.
Nichols says her mother called that evening, telling her the doctor had “nicked” her artery during the procedure and that she’d be staying at the hospital.
The puncture to her iliac artery had leaked blood into her lower abdomen. Nichols’ lawyer told jurors the test that damaged the artery might not have been necessary and that doctors should have surgically repaired the damage immediately or inserted a stent to cover the hole.
Doctors first tried to close the punctured artery, then injected a clotting agent.
After three days in the hospital, Crayton was discharged on July 11, 2014.
Crayton got in her car and drove home.
“If you read the chart, you could tell she was not doing well,” says Nichols, who wasn’t there when her mother was discharged. “They released her anyway.”
The next morning, Crayton’s son-in-law, who was staying with her, found her on her bedroom floor and called 911. Crayton was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where doctors found she was bleeding internally and inserted a stent that stopped the bleeding but too late to save her, according to the suit.
Nichols rushed to be with her mother, but Crayton died a day later without regaining consciousness.
U. of C. doctors testified that, when they discharged Crayton, her red-blood cell counts had improved, and they believed the danger had passed.
Gomberg-Maitland testified that, with Crayton’s multiple ailments, she already was seriously ill. After Crayton experienced an irregular heartbeat the day of the consultation, Gomberg-Maitland testified, “My impression was … I needed to stabilize her and admit her into the intensive-care unit.”
She told jurors catheterization was necessary to figure out how best to treat Crayton.
Nichols says that, despite her mother’s health problems, she “was enjoying retirement” and was active, traveling, playing cards with friends and working on an online doctorate in organizational development.
She says Crayton also was the primary caregiver for her own mother, Nichols’ grandmother, who died within a year after Crayton’s death.
At the time of her mom’s death, Nichols’ older son Kendell was 4, and she and her husband were expecting their second child. She says Kavan, born soon after, takes after his grandmother: fun-loving, playful and “bossy like she was.”
“My mom has been with me since the birth of my son,” Nichols says. “He is super-bright and smart — like her.”
