Patricia Whitman
San Antonio, TX
Patricia Whitman is 48 years old and a cosmetologist who lives in San Antonio with her two daughters and grandson. She’s very active in her church and loves to give back to others through mission trips and mentoring other women.
While she was at home on June 15th, 2010, she started having what she thought was indigestion, a burning in her chest, numbness in her hands, and a shortness of breath. By the time her friend got her to the Emergency Room, she was having trouble walking or moving on her own. After hours of waiting and vomiting, she finally saw a doctor who sent her home with medication for indigestion.
When she was still having the severe burning in her chest the next morning, her friend took her to an urgent care clinic and they sent her back to the ER. When she returned, the doctors realized she had suffered a heart attack and rushed to place two stents in her heart.
As a result of the delay in care, doctors tell her she has severe and permanent damage to her heart, leaving her with a 30% ejection fraction and just one to three years before she will need her heart replaced. She will have to be placed on the waiting list for a heart transplant, which, if successful, they say will lend her about 10 more years.
If the ER staff had properly treated her for a heart attack, Patricia might be living a normal life today. Before the heart attack, Patricia owned her own salon and was a fast-paced multitasker who loved to work out and care for her family and large home. Instead, her weakened heart has limited her ability to work such that she had to close her salon and sell her house. She now lives in an apartment and struggles to keep up her energy for daily tasks and must rely on an implanted defibrilator and pacemaker to help keep her heart beating and hopefully prevent sudden cardiac death.
Due to the high hurdles patients must meet to prove ER staff wrongdoing since Texas lawmakers restricted patient rights in 2003, Patricia has been unable to hold the hospital and its staff accountable for their delay of care.
