NEW YORK — The mother of a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy who died earlier this month from antibiotic resistant staph infection put the city on notice Tuesday that she planned a $25 million lawsuit.
Aileen Rivera said Kings County Hospital improperly diagnosed the illness of her son, Omar, and sent him home after treatment with allergy medicine. He died of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus two days later, on Oct. 14.
Rivera, speaking in a calm, firm voice, said her son got much worse the following night.
When she took him to another emergency room, at Brookdale Hospital, staff said they would do their best. Then, she said, “They tell me ‘he don’t make it.'”
She announced her intention to sue the city and its hospital system at the offices of the Cochran law firm in Manhattan. A notice of claim is the first step in bringing a lawsuit.
Kings County said this week that it was closely examining whether it could have done anything more to detect the infection.
Derek Sells, one of her lawyers, said that the law required them to set a monetary figure for the damages. “Although you can never put a price on a life … we put this figure in to represent the significant nature of our claim,” he said.
“What my son go through, I don’t want any kid, no mother, to go through,” said Rivera.
It appears that doctors at two separate health-care centers failed to recognize them as telltale signs of a “superbug” infection on Omar.
“If [a patient] has a skin lesion that has been present for several days and is presenting with a high fever, that would raise suspicions about MRSA immediately,” said Dr. Pascal James Imperato, health commissioner under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“They would do a variety of laboratory studies, including cultures from the actual lesions themselves to see what kind of organism is causing them.”
Those crucial tests apparently were not conducted until after Omar died on Oct. 14.
His last day at IS 211 in Canarsie was Oct. 9. His friends said he spent it saying goodbye because he knew he would be out sick for a while.
“I told him to go see a doctor,” recalled buddy Khalid Jones, 13. “It was bad – pus was coming down his leg.”
On Oct. 11, Aileen Rivera brought him to First MedCare, a clinic on Flatlands Avenue.
He had a high fever and an MRSA hallmark, pus-oozing lesions, according to the Rivera family’s lawyer, Paul Weitz.
Omar was sent home with Motrin and amoxicillin, a mild antibiotic. The next day, he was taken to Kings County Hospital, where doctors thought he was having an allergic reaction to the Motrin. He was sent home that night with the antihistamine Benadryl, Weitz said.
“What they should have done is worked this boy up,” Weitz said. “There is no way they should have let this boy go home.”
Weitz and Aileen Rivera were expected to announce a medical-malpractice lawsuit against Kings County Hospital today.
Hope Mason, a hospital spokeswoman, did not return calls seeking comment.
Chaya Knopf, an administrator at First MedCare, declined to comment.
Both facilities are now under investigation by the state Department of Health.
Meanwhile, a New Rochelle elementary-school student was diagnosed with MRSA yesterday and is recovering at a hospital.
With Chuck Bennet and Post wire services.