Man blames wife's death on doctor

CHARLESTON - A Kanawha County man says his wife's death was avoidable and blames the doctor who treated her.

Joshua Scott, Executor of the Estate of Lida Scott, filed a lawsuit Aug. 10 in Kanawha Circuit Court against N. Anwar Yahar Abdeen and Mountain Emergency Physicians, claiming Abdeen did not properly treat or diagnose her heart attack.

Despite a medical history that Scott describes as a 53-year-old obese female who smoked 1 ½ packs of cigarettes per day and had elevated cholesterol and a family history of heart disease, Lida Scott's heart attack on April 9, 2004, went untreated.

Abdeen was practicing at St. Francis Hospital when Lida Scott arrived in the emergency room, the complaint says.

It adds that "During his care and treatment of Lida Scott, (Abdeen) failed to diagnose that Lida Scott had unstable angina; failed to undertake and appropriate risk stratification analysis; failed to provide mandatory immediate general treatment including the giving of oxygen, nitroglycerine and morphine; failed to consider, let alone provide, adjunctive treatments including but not limited to beta blockers, calcium antagonists and herapin; failed to properly interpret Lida Scott's initial EKG which was diagnostic for an acute inferior myocardial infarction; failed to conduct serial EKGs; failed to timely order biochemical markers for cardiac injury; failed to conduct serial biochemical markers; and failed to provide Lida Scott appropriate treatment for her myocardial infarction."

All this led to her death, according to Scott, who seeks compensatory and punitive damages and court costs. He adds that Mountain Emergency Physicians is at fault for putting Abdeen in an emergency room situation when he was not certified and did not have proper training and experience.

Arden Curry II of Charleston law firm Curry and Tolliver is representing Scott. A scheduling conference will be held Sept. 21.

Judge Jennifer Bailey Walker has been assigned the case.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number 06-C-1596