FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. Bus rider denied access to insulin wins lawsuit

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Broward Circuit Court jury ordered Greyhound Lines Inc. on Tuesday to pay $245,000 to a diabetic mother who endured a nightmarish bus ride from Fort Lauderdale to Newark without her insulin.
Maureen Fitzpatrick, 44, suffered diabetic seizures and a heart attack after she said she wasn't allowed to get an emergency vial of insulin that was in her suitcase, stored in the bus luggage compartment.
She had brought an insulin pump with her for the Feb. 27, 2002, trip, but it either had run out of insulin or wasn't working, said Russell S. Adler, Fitzpatrick's attorney.
Trip cut short
Fitzpatrick and her teenage son had been heading to visit relatives in Yonkers, N.Y., but her trip ended in Newark when paramedics rushed her to an emergency room. She spent 10 days in the hospital. "I cry about what happened every night, to think I came that close to death," the Fort Lauderdale woman said.
Adler argued Fitzpatrick's medical problems could have been prevented if a bus driver in Jacksonville simply had allowed her to go through her suitcase. She said the driver had told her it would be against company policy to open the luggage compartment, accessible only from the outside, for her.
"She had a needless heart attack," Adler said.
Kim Plaskett, a spokeswoman for Greyhound Lines in Dallas, said company policy prevented her from discussing the three-day trial and verdict. Greyhound is the nation's largest provider of intercity bus transportation, serving more than 2,500 destinations.
Mark Ruff, Greyhound's attorney on the case, could not be reached to comment.