The first witnesses were called to testify yesterday in the wrongful death lawsuit actor James Woods has brought against Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island. Kent Hospital is where Woods’ younger brother Michael died suddenly in 2006 of an apparent heart attack. The lawsuit alleges the hospital staff should have realized Michael had a heart condition and taken steps to save his life. The jury heard yesterday from two nurses who dealt with Michael in the hospital’s emergency room the day he died. The nurses claim that although friends say Woods was out of sorts and complaining of throat pain the day he died, he told them that the sore throat was no big deal. One of the nurses said she sent Woods to the “express care” part of the emergency room because his symptoms did not appear to be serious.
The second nurse, Sandra Beauchaine, said she felt Woods’ condition was worse than her co-worker thought and sought the doctor on duty for a closer examination, which resulted in Woods being transferred to the part of the emergency room which handles the most serious cases. Beauchaine apparently did not fill out the proper paperwork once Woods was transferred, but said she couldn’t explain why. Cross-examination revealed a form in Beauchaine’s handwriting that listed medications Michael Woods had been taken for hypertension and gastric reflux, but the forms were not dated or initialed, nor was there a record of when the paperwork was created.
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