BEUFORT COUNTY, SC – Beaufort County EMS and the Bluffton Township Fire District have denied allegations in a lawsuit filed in December by a Bluffton woman who said an ambulance’s delay at an unmanned security gate in her neighborhood led to her husband’s death.
Both county EMS and the fire district ask that the suit be dismissed, according to their answers, filed Jan. 22 and Jan. 19, respectively.
County EMS “used due, reasonable and proper skill in assessing care for treating and providing emergency care services to … Mr. (James) Smith in compliance with the generally accepted emergency standards of care,” according to the answer.
The fire district responded similarly: “The care and treatment … rendered by BTFD was within the standard of care required of its profession.”
Sarah Smith of Baynard Park filed the negligence and wrongful death lawsuit Dec. 17 on behalf of her late husband, James Smith, 65, who suffered a heart attack at his home and died 11 days later on April 18.
Sarah Smith seeks unspecified damages against the defendants.
Though six defendants were named in the suit, answers have been filed only by the two emergency response agencies. The other defendants are:
• Centex Homes, the Nevada company that developed Baynard Park.
• The Baynard Park Property Owners Association.
• Omni Management Services.
• Bundy Appraisal & Management.
Omni and Bundy are property-management companies that have operated in Baynard Park, according to the suit.
The suit says the defendants’ negligence caused James Smith to experience “conscious pain and suffering, and ultimately an untimely, premature and painful death” — an allegation both the EMS and fire departments deny in their answers.
The suit alleges that “had EMS arrived at Mr. Smith’s residence in a timely manner, then, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, it could have successfully resuscitated (him) in a prompt fashion” and he wouldn’t have died. James Smith’s medical records were reviewed by an expert witness who made that determination, according to court documents.
Beaufort County EMS denies those allegations in its answer.
County EMS “used reasonable and proper skill and care in responding to, assessing and caring for the decedent in accordance with the applicable standard of care,” according to the answer.
The incident at the center of the suit occurred at 9:25 p.m. April 7. James Smith apparently was suffering a heart attack when his wife called 911.
An ambulance from Beaufort County EMS arrived at Baynard Park’s security gate in about four minutes but was delayed two to three minutes because paramedics couldn’t open the unmanned gate, according to a report the county provided to The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette in April. Responders arrived at the patient’s home nearly nine minutes after leaving the station, according to the county’s report. EMS took Smith to Hilton Head Hospital, where he later died of irreversible brain damage, his son told the newspapers in April.
Sarah Smith’s suit alleges, among other things, that Beaufort County EMS acted negligently because:
• Paramedics and emergency medical technicians didn’t know how to operate the unmanned security gate and didn’t keep proper records of codes to open it.
• Ambulances weren’t equipped with an emergency override key that the Bluffton Township Fire District was outfitted with — or with an override system of any sort.
• It failed “simply to have driven their EMS vehicle around the gate” to treat James Smith in a “timely manner.”
County EMS denies all three allegations in its answer.
When firefighters, who routinely go to medical calls, arrive at any unmanned gate first, they use emergency override keys to open the gates for ambulances, officials have said.
When Beaufort County EMS arrives first, paramedics must use codes listed in their ambulances because they do not have physical override keys.
When paramedics arrived at the Baynard Park security gate — which is manned only from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to the suit — they entered what they thought was the gate’s code. The gate did not open.
Before trying again, they had to wait 45 seconds because the system is set to freeze temporarily after failed attempts, according to the suit.
When they tried again, the gate remained closed.
County EMS did not directly respond to the sequence of events in its answer, which admits only that “if an incorrect code was entered, there was a delay in the key pad” and that “the code provided to (county EMS) did not open the gate at Baynard Park.”
They were using a code listed in a book carried in their ambulance, according the county report provided to the newspapers.
About a minute after the ambulance arrived at the gate, a Bluffton Township fire engine arrived, the county’s report said. It was equipped with a device called a Knox-Box Rapid Entry System — an override device that opens residential gates for emergency personnel.
But on the call to the Smiths’ house, firefighters couldn’t get into a security box where the Knox key was kept because of a blown fuse on the fire truck, according to the suit.
The fire district acknowledges in its answer there was a blown fuse on the truck. Another fire official, however, had driven to Baynard Park in his own vehicle and was able to open the gate because he had another Knox key, the answer says.
The Beaufort County Council passed a measure in October requiring all new gated communities to have codeless and keyless systems on each gate to prevent similar incidents. Existing communities must retrofit their systems — at their own expense — by October 2010.
