SUIT AGAINST JFK, DOCTORS BEGINS
BILL DOUTHAT Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The Palm Beach Post
Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company.
All rights
reserved.
Friday, March 5, 2004
LOCAL
WEST PALM BEACH A 38-year-old mother of two expected to walk out
of JFK
Medical Center cured of leukemia, attorneys for the woman's family
said
Thursday.
Instead, Kimberly Dawn Kennedy died because a surgeon nicked her
lung as he
inserted a chest tube that was to carry the chemotherapy medicines
that could
have saved her, attorney Rebecca Larson said.
"This is a case about the total failure of Kimberly Kennedy's
health-care
providers," Larson told the jury in the opening day of the
civil trial against
the Atlantis hospital and several doctors.
Kennedy, a dental hygienist from West Palm Beach, died Oct. 5, 2001,
eight days
after the catheter was inserted.
Defense attorneys argued that Kennedy knew that inserting the catheter
carried
risks, including possible bleeding.
They also said that her leukemia was terminal and she probably would
not have
survived the planned six to eight weeks of chemotherapy.
"The truth of the matter is that Mrs. Kennedy was a lot sicker
than people
realized," said Jay Chimpoulis, one of the defense attorneys.
The autopsy showed the aggressive myelogenous leukemia had spread
throughout
her body, including to her brain, said another defense attorney,
Dennis
Vanderberg.
Larson said doctors failed to react quickly when the perforation
of the lung
caused it to fill up with blood.
Larson and her law partner, Bob Montgomery, are asking for money
damages for
Kennedy's husband, Bryan, and their two children.
The trial before Circuit Judge David Crow is expected to last four
weeks.
bill_douthat@pbpost.com