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Father of slain Warren man files lawsuit against ambulance company, hospital, doctors
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The father of a 24-year-old man shot to death at a Warren gas station Oct. 26, 2013, has filed a lawsuit against the ambulance company that responded, the Warren hospital that treated him and two physicians.
Richard Rollison III, father of Richard Rollison IV, filed the suit Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, naming as defendants the Clemente-McKay Ambulance Service, Humility of Mary Health Partners-St. Joseph Health Center, Humility of Mary Health Partners-St. Elizabeth Health Center and doctors Michael B. Svoboda and Robert W. Woodruff.
The suit says the ambulance company failed to arrive at the gas station in a timely fashion, failed to provide appropriate emergency services to the injured man and failed to heed information from St. Joseph Health Center that it had no trauma surgeon available.
Shane Hoddle, general manager and operations supervisor for Clemente-Mc-Kay, said he was not familiar with the case except that the patient asked to be taken to St. Joseph Health Center.
The suit says the hospital accepted Rollison as a patient knowing that it had no available trauma surgeon and failed to notify the ambulance squad of the need to take Rollison to another hospital.
After accepting him as a patient, hospital staff failed to notify a backup trauma surgeon of the unavailability of the on-call trauma surgeon, the suit said.
The suit also alleges the St. Elizabeth Health Center intensive-care transport team failed to transport Rollison to St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown in a timely manner once the decision was made to transfer him from St. Joseph Health Center.
“Despite aggressive efforts and appropriate care upon arrival at St. Elizabeth’s, Richard C. Rollison IV, died on Oct. 26, 2013, as a result of blood loss secondary to his gunshot wounds,” the suit says.
Humility of Mary Health System said in an email, “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, I can say the Humility of Mary Health Partners strives to provide quality care and achieve the best possible outcome for all our patients.”
The suit says Dr. Michael B. Svoboda, the emergency-room physician at St. Joseph’s, failed to timely notify the ambulance squad of the need to take Rollison to another hospital and negligently failed to administer adequate blood products and fluids. He also failed to notify a backup surgeon when he learned the on-call trauma surgeon was not available, the suit said.
Dr. Robert W. Woodruff, the on-call trauma surgeon at the hospital, failed to notify personnel at the hospital that he was unavailable to provide trauma services, the suit says.
Drs. Svoboda and Woodruff could not be reached late Monday to comment.
A John Doe doctor also is named in the lawsuit for refusing to come to the hospital to treat Rollison, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit was filed by Atty. Martin F. White of Warren. It seeks unspecified damages from the defendants.