Staff members trying to bring drug rehab facility patients under control may put patients in a prone position, on their stomachs. This action can leave patients at risk of breathing issues and positional asphyxia death.
Rehab clinic owners and operators are responsible for training that teaches staff members to avoid placing patients in this position.
Families who lose a loved one to this preventable accident can hold the facility liable and seek wrongful death support.
What Is Positional Asphyxia Death?
Positional asphyxia death is a risk when patients are restrained on their stomachs, and perhaps with their arms held behind their backs. The patient’s position or pressure on the person’s back keeps the chest from expanding fully, restricting the victim’s ability to get oxygen. The victim’s chin held firmly against their chest can also restrict airways.
Patients can quickly go into cardiac arrest and lose their life.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports that someone in a panic or someone unresponsive placed in a prone position can be at major risk. Someone in the middle of drug withdrawal and detox can easily end up helpless.
Unfortunately, the symptoms of an overdose can also cause respiratory distress on their own, lending to an elevated chance of positional asphyxia.
Staff members must receive training to avoid the occurrence of asphyxia:
- Training to avoid using the “hog-tied” restraint position
- Training to avoid placing too much pressure on patients while they are lying prone
- Training to place patients on their sides or their backs as soon as they are restrained
- Training to recognize the signs of labored breathing
- Training to understand those at risk of positional asphyxia death (e.g., obese patients, patients who have overdosed, panicked patients)
- Training in rescue-breathing techniques to resuscitate a patient
- Training to call 911 immediately
These and other precautions must be part of hiring qualifications and training initiatives. When they aren’t, and patients are injured or lose their lives due to positional asphyxia, facility owners can be held liable.
In civil wrongful death cases, corporations are held liable for negligent restraint. In some cases, liability falls under negligent training and should result in support for devastated families.
Wrongful Death Support for Families After a Patient Asphyxia Death
An experienced lawyer helps families gather the evidence needed to show that staff members made mistakes that led to an asphyxia death. This evidence can include surveillance video. It would include the results of an internal investigation into a tragic death.
Corporate lawyers can make these and other pieces of evidence hard to obtain. However, a lawyer would be able to force facilities to turn over all relevant documents.
A skilled lawyer files a wrongful death claim on behalf of families. This claim must demand wrongful death and Survival Action damages:
- The facility pays all funeral costs.
- The facility pays for any remaining medical bills left behind.
- The facility reimburses the family for any income that the deceased would have provided the family.
- The facility provides support for the loss of care, security, and guidance that a loved one provided.
- The facility provides support for parents who lose a child at an adolescent drug rehab center, especially for their loss of companionship.
In some cases, punitive damages penalties can be assessed against an extremely negligent facility. This is meant to punish the facility further, but the fines paid go directly to grieving families.
Contact Us If a Rehab Center’s Negligence Claimed the Life of a Loved One.
Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to California families who have lost someone who was working towards recovery at a negligent rehab facility. It’s a no-risk information session to determine what California drug treatment centers are responsible for and how to force them to accept full blame.
Call us today or fill out a free case review form.
A skilled attorney has a great chance to earn families much more than they could by handling these complex cases themselves. And victims never have to worry about paying a lawyer. We aren’t paid unless we win the case. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check a facility must write for you.