CHARLESTON – The widow of Tucker County man blames Mon Health and Vandalia Health for his death.
Sherry Smith, as personal representative of the estate of Chad Smith, filed her complaint March 21 in Kanawha Circuit Court against Monongalia County General Hospital Company doing business as Mon Health Medical Center as well as Vandalia Health Inc.
According to the complaint, Chad Smith presented to Preston Memorial Hospital, which is owned by the defendants, on March 6, 2024, following an intra-ocular injection with reported symptoms of significant transient memory loss. He had a previous diagnosis of Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome.
He was diagnosed with transient global amnesia, and his ECG showed pre-excitation.
On March 8, 2024, Smith went into SVT with a heart rate of 224. He went to Preston Memorial’s emergency room where he was converted to a normal heart rhythm and was discharged with scheduled follow-up with cardiac electrophysiologist Dr. Salam Sbaity.
He saw Sbaity on March 12, 2024, in Monongalia County and was scheduled for an electrophysiology study on May 30, 2024.
But Smith had a cardiac arrest on May 17, 2024, and ultimately died from complications on May 26, 2024.
The estate says Mon Health employees and agents, including Sbaity, deviated from the accepted standards of medical care by failing to recognize Smith’s memory loss likely was a hypotensive episode related to his underlying cardiac condition. It also says the defendants failed to treat Smith’s need for an EP study and possible ablation as an emergent situation and failed to admit him to the hospital on March 12, 2024.
The complaint accuses Mon Health and Vandalia Health of medical negligence and vicarious liability.
The estate says it has and will suffer sorrow, mental anguish, loss of solace, companionship, comfort, guidance, kindly offices and advice of the decedent, loss of income, services, protection, care and assistance provided by the decedent and expenses related to his death. It also says Smith endured pain and suffering before his death.
It seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
The estate is being represented by L. Dante diTrapano and David H. Carriger of Calwell Luce diTrapano in Charleston and by Dr. Richard D. Lindsay of Tabor Lindsay & Associates in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Stephanie Abraham.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 25-C-390