Mom Blames Hospital for Teen’s Death

ST. LOUIS (CN) - The mother of a woman who died in police custody sued Tenet Health System and five doctors, claiming that instead of treating her daughter the hospital had her arrested.

Anna Brown was 19 when she died on Sept. 21, 2011.

Brown's mother, Dorothy Davis, claims in City Court that her daughter had been suffering from leg pains for more than a week when she went to St. Mary's Hospital on Sept. 21. By that time, Brown was complaining of abdominal pains and other symptoms, her mom says.

Davis says the hospital released her daughter, but she refused to leave.

Richmond Heights police were called doctors told them she was fit for confinement, according to the complaint.

Police arrested Brown, though she couldn't walk on her own, and put her in a cell, where she died from blood clots that traveled from her legs to her lungs, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

"Defendants recorded an examination that did not recite any complaint of abdominal pain or left leg pain, and defendants did no additional diagnostic testing of any kind in certifying Anna Brown's fit-for confinement report," the mother's complaint states.

Davis claims her daughter first sought treatment for her leg pain on Sept. 13, 2011 at St. Louis University Hospital, to which she was admitted from Sept. 14 to Sept. 15. She returned to that hospital later on Sept. 15, on Sept. 16 and on Sept. 20, complaining about the leg pain.

Davis seeks damages for wrongful death and false arrest and imprisonment. She is represented by Daniel McMichael, with McMichael & Logan.

Named as defendants are Tenet Health System SL Inc. dba Saint Louis University Hospital, SSM Health Care St. Louis dba St. Mary's Health Center and five doctors.

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