In a tragic case of mistaken identity, a new lawsuit alleges that a hospital inadvertently took the wrong patient off life support, leading to the death of his roommate.
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David Wells, 69, was rushed to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington, after choking on a piece of steak in August 2021. He was unconscious and not breathing.
However, upon arrival, workers allegedly mixed him up with his hospital roommate, Mike Beehler.
As his condition worsened, the hospital attempted to reach out to Wells’ family to make the difficult decision to take him off life support. However, they mistakenly called Beehler’s sister, Debbie Danielson.
“They said, ‘He’s basically brain dead,'” Danielson recalled to local news outlet KGW. “[They asked,] ‘Do you want us to keep him on life support or do you want to pull the plug?'”
Danielson made the “difficult choice” to terminate her brother’s life. Then, a week later, he called her on the phone.
“I said, ‘You can’t be alive. You’re dead!” Danielson recounted.
Debbie Danielson Made the Difficult Decision to Take Her Brother Off Life Support—A Week Later, He Called Her on the Phone
It was a shocking moment of joy. However, for the other family, it was a different kind of shock.
“We made life-ending decisions for a person we don’t even know,” admitted Danielson’s husband, Gary.
PeaceHealth reported Beehler’s death, yet transported Wells’ body to the morgue. After Beehler and Danielson called police to report the mix-up, the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that it was Wells who had died.
They called his son to break the news—but didn’t share the full truth.
“They basically told me there was a medical emergency regarding my father,” Shawn Wells told KHW. “He had been pronounced dead.”
It wasn’t until a reporter contacted him two years later that Wells learned what had actually happened to his father.
“I’m at a loss for words how badly they handled this,” he told the outlet. “I’ll never be able to get that decision back.”
“They dropped the ball so egregiously,” he continued. “It’s disturbing. I don’t know if I’m going to get over it.”
Now, he, Beehler, and Danielson are suing PeaceHelth for negligence and causing severe emotional distress “as a direct result of their extreme and outrageous conduct.”
Due to the ongoing lawsuit, PeaceHealth has not offered more details on the incident.
However a spokesperson told the New York Post that the hospital “has worked diligently to strengthen our patient identification processes, which has included continued collaboration with multiple community agencies involved in healthcare, including EMS.”