UW – Wrongful Death

My fiancé recently passed away after fighting a brain infection starting Nov 4th-Dec. 15. She was in critical condition for some time, but it all came crashing down when a MRI was ordered for her the early morning of Nov. 28. She was hydrocephalic (too much pressure in the brain). And if you know anything about these patients, you know they can’t be laid flat for very long, otherwise, the pressure can get to the point of brain stem herniation.

That’s exactly what the folks at UW Neuro Critical care did.

They ordered her an MRI that lasted 2 hours to image her brain and three sections of the spine. She hadn’t laid flat for that long since we discovered the hydrocephalus.

After that, her brain stem did herniate. She had a heart attack. The pressure in her brain was too high that even after resuscitation, they couldn’t get blood up to her brain. This caused diffuse anoxic brain injury (her brain died of lack of oxygen). She was able to wake up and follow commands just 5 hours earlier.

We ultimately had to make the decision to say goodbye on Dec. 15.

I’m writing this as a PSA. No matter what, require your doctor to give you the risks of any procedure. We didn’t get that.

UW is supposed to be the best neuro-center in the northwest, and they lost the most important person in the world to me. And it was completely avoidable.

As her fiance, I don’t have any legal rights to pursue a wrongful death/medical malpractice claim in the state of Washington. Now, I just want people to know the story of my fiancé.