Docs Called Live Boy Dead, Parents Say

CHICAGO (CN) - Parents claim in court that doctors pronounced their son dead, ignoring signs of life for hours before a cardiac ultrasound revealed he was still alive.

Sheena Lane and Pink Dorsey sued Mercy Hospital and Drs. Stephanie Knodel and Laura Napier in Cook County Court.

The parents claim that in February this year, their disabled son, Jaylen, was found "unresponsive at home and taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital."

"At 9:52 a.m. on February 18, 2012, Stephanie Knodel, M.D. arrived at the conclusion that Jaylen Dorsey, a disabled minor had died and that further resuscitative efforts would prove to no avail," the complaint states. "Accordingly, at 9:52 a.m. on February 18, 2012, Stephanie Knodel, M.D. under the supervision and with the approval of Laura Napier, M.D. and Mercy Hospital and Medical Center pronounced Jaylen Dorsey, a disabled minor, dead."

But the parents say that Mercy Hospital staff, including Drs. Knodel and Napier, had seen "episodes of eye twitching, body movement, agonal breathing, nasal flaring and ascertainable pulses."

Nonetheless, the parents say, the doctors waited until 2:35 p.m. to perform a cardiac ultra sound, which revealed their son was still alive.

"(F)ollowing a 2:35 p.m. cardiac ultrasound demonstrating organized cardiac activity, Jaylen Dorsey, a disabled minor was placed on monitors that demonstrated a heart rate of 117, normal sinus rhythm, an oxygen saturation of 92 percent on room air and a blood pressure of 162/106," according to the complaint.

The parents say that Knodel "owed a direct duty to Sheena Lane and Pink Dorsey to provide accurate factual and medical information regarding the life status of Jaylen Dorsey and to avoid negligently providing inaccurate factual and medical information regarding the life status of their child, Jaylen Dorsey, a disabled minor, when it was reasonably foreseeable that advising Sheena Lane and Pink Dorsey that their son, Jaylen Dorsey, a disabled minor, was dead would cause great and severe emotional distress, mental anguish, mental pain and mental suffering."

They seek damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress, and pain and suffering.

They are represented by Michael Cox with Goldberg & Goldberg.

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