Lawsuit: Woman with Alzheimer’s who went ‘missing’ from Boardman ER struck and killed by car

BOARDMAN — A new civil lawsuit against Mercy Health's St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital and several of its nurses and doctors alleges a woman with Alzheimer's disease admitted to the hospital's emergency room last November wandered out of the hospital and into a busy thoroughfare, where she was struck by a vehicle.

She later died.

Attorneys for relatives of the 70-year-old Petra Marquez filed the lawsuit earlier this month in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, alleging medical malpractice and wrongful death.

According to the civil complaint, Marquez' son Flor Marquez Jr. took his mother to the Boardman hospital's emergency department just after 5 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2020 because of her "altered mental status" — a medical term used to describe patients exhibiting dementia or delirium.

Flor was not permitted to stay at the hospital with his mother, due to COVID-19 restrictions, according to the complaint.

"[Petra] was well known to the caregivers at St. Elizabeth Hospital where she was previously diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease," the attorneys wrote.

But after 9 p.m. that night, St. Elizabeth caregivers couldn't find Petra, according to the complaint. Hospital records indicate she was seen walking out of a bathroom. Workers eventually told one of the hospital's leading nurses and its clinical manager that Petra "was missing."

"Unbeknownst to the emergency staff, Ms. Marquez wandered out of the emergency department onto a busy street where she was struck by a truck," reads the complaint.

Petra was reportedly walking south along Market Street just after 9:30 p.m. Nov. 9, 2020 — after it had turned dark — when she was hit by a pickup truck driven by an East Palestine man, The Vindicator reported last year.

Paramedics returned Petra to the Boardman ER, where she was pronounced dead later that evening, according to the complaint.

"I've been doing this 40-plus years and this is probably as aggravated a situation as I've seen," Marquez' Cleveland-area attorney Michael Djordjevic told Mahoning Matters Wednesday.

"For the hospital to be so irresponsible, to literally lose a patient — I've never seen that before," he added.

The lawsuit argues the more than a dozen St. Elizabeth doctors and nurses named in the suit failed to properly supervise and care for Petra while she was at the hospital — despite knowing of her Alzheimer's diagnosis — and that it was that negligence led to her death.

In an affidavit attached to the complaint, Dr. Ken Zafren, who is licensed to practice in Alaska and California, stated Petra's care at the Boardman hospital "demonstrated a reckless disregard and heedless indifference to the consequences."

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

County court records indicate several of the St. Elizabeth doctors and nurses named in the case have been served with the complaint, but Mercy Health has not.

A Tuesday email requesting comment from Mercy Health spokespersons was not acknowledged.

No court dates have been set.

This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 3:52 AM with the headline "Lawsuit: Woman with Alzheimer’s who went ‘missing’ from Boardman ER struck and killed by car."