CHARLESTON – A woman says she severely injured her hand on a trash can at CAMC’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital, but hospital officials say the finger shouldn’t be pointed at them.
Tiffany Johnson filed her complaint in Kanawha Circuit Court against CAMC Health System.
According to the complaint, Johnson was an employee of Tri For Life, a tenant at Charleston Area Medical Center’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital. She says CAMC provided certain equipment, including a trash can, to Tri For Life, which is birth tissue recovery organization.
Johnson says the trash can in the office on June 10, 2020, was missing a barrier around a sharp metal edge on the inside lid. She says she was injured when she picked up the “unsafe and poorly maintained” trash can.
She says she suffered a laceration that severed the tendon of her ring finger on her left hand and cut another finger. She says she has had 10 operations on her left hand and numerous infections. She says she has no range of motion in her finger, has lost significant use of her left hand, has permanent scarring on her hand and likely will have additional surgeries.
In her complaint, Johnson says she has sustained pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, medical expenses, permanent disfigurement, loss of motion and significant loss of use of her left hand. She seeks compensatory damages.
But in its answer, CAMC seeks to have the case dismissed because it says the trash can did not belong to the hospital. Instead, they say it was purchased by Tri For Life. The answer includes an affidavit from Norman Russell Adams, founder and president of Tri For Life.
“CAMC only provided a desk and did not provide any equipment, including trash cans, in the space leased by Tri For Life,” Adams says in the affidavit, which also includes a receipt showing the purchase of the biohazard trash can.
Johnson is being represented by Lia DiTrapano Fairless of DiTrapano Law Firm in Charleston and by Patrick K. Maroney of Maroney Williams Weaver & Pancake in Charleston. CAMC is being represented by Melissa Dodd Veltri and Brittany Givens Simmons of Dinsmore & Shohl’s Huntington office. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 21-C-1143