Randolph Health loses wrongful death lawsuit
Mar. 11—RANDOLPH COUNTY — A jury awarded $1.75 million this week to the relatives of a Randolph County man who died while being treated at Randolph Hospital six years ago.
The trial in the wrongful death suit filed by relatives of Robert Staley lasted four weeks, and the jury issued its verdict Thursday afternoon in Randolph County Superior Court.
Phyllis Lile-King, a Greensboro attorney who represented Staley's relatives, said the jury awarded the amount of damages the family sought.
Randolph Health had no comment on Friday.
Staley, who was 47, had a low heart rate and fainted while coming home from work on June 14, 2017, and had been taken by ambulance to Randolph Hospital. He lived within a three-minute drive of the Asheboro facility, Lile-King said.
"He initially got great treatment," she said. "He was put on a pacer," a temporary device to stimulate the heart.
Randolph Hospital contacted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical Center and planned to have Staley taken there for surgery to implant a pacemaker, a procedure that wasn't available at Randolph Hospital, Lile-King said.
Staley was kept on the pacer for several hours while waiting for a bed to open at UNC Medical Center.
A doctor ordered an X-ray of Staley's chest, and he was taken to the radiology department, Lile-King said.
"An X-ray tech came into the room and took him off the pacer," Lile-King said. "He was off the pacer for seven minutes. Their daughter told the technician that he wasn't supposed to unhook the pacer, and the tech said, 'I know what I'm doing.' "
Staley died around midnight the same day.
The lawsuit, filed four years ago against Randolph Health by Staley's widow and their three adult children, said that Randolph Health failed to properly train X-ray technicians on the use of pacers and that Staley's pacer was removed improperly, Lile-King said.
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