The estate of a man who died at Apple Rehab Mystic in 2022 during what was supposed to be his recovery from surgery on the veins of his leg is suing the center and the hospital in Rhode Island where he underwent the surgery.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Nicole Pare of North Smithfield, R.I., the administrator of the estate of Philippe Baril, who died on Jan. 31, 2022, at Apple Rehab Mystic, which is at 28 Broadway Ave. in the part of Mystic village in the town of Stonington.
The suit, filed March 12, originally named as defendants only Apple Health Care Inc. of Avon, which does business through at least 20 Apple Rehab centers around the state, including the one in Mystic, and a number of nurses responsible for Baril's care at the Mystic center.
After the defendants in the original suit filed an "apportionment complaint" on Aug. 15 against Westerly Hospital, two doctors practicing there and related legal entities, Pare filed an amended complaint Oct. 1 adding those defendants to the Baril estate's suit as well.
Lawyer Gina M. Hall, who represents Apple Health Care and a number of its nurses in the case, has not responded to a Dec. 10 email seeking comment.
Fiona Phelan, a spokeswoman for Westerly Hospital and its parent entity, Yale New Haven Health, said in a statement that the hospital is "committed to providing the safest and highest quality of care possible, however, we are unable to comment on pending litigation.
Baril was discharged from Westerly Hospital on Jan. 26, 2022, after undergoing surgery on the veins of his right leg, according to the amended complaint filed in state Superior Court in Hartford by lawyer Jonathan A. Kocienda.
Baril was admitted to Apple Rehab Mystic with medical conditions that included "a six-inch open wound in his right inner thigh that was actively being treated with application of a negative pressure wound vacuum system," or "wound vac," the complaint says.
The day Baril was admitted to Apple Rehab, a nurse failed to place the wound vac on his wound "despite the vascular surgery orders to provide him with wound vac therapy," the complaint alleges. It says the wound vac was not placed until the next day.
The complaint alleges other deficiencies in Baril's care. In the days before Jan. 30, 2022, it says, all his treatment providers should have known that "his dressing below the wound vac required changing and that the condition of the wound required evaluation and assessment, and that neither had been done."
Around 7 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2022, Baril "was found lying face down on the floor beside his bed in a pool of blood that had come from his right groin wound. The wound vac seal was loose, the wound vac container was full of blood and the wound vac device was sounding an alarm," the complaint says.
Baril died that day, according to the complaint.
As a result of the negligence of Apple Rehab and its employees, the complaint alleges, Baril "was forced to watch helplessly, in terror and fear, as an excessive and lethal amount of blood was pumped from his body by a wound vacuum, while alarms sounded and nobody responding and coming to his aid."
In the apportionment complaint, Apple Health Care, related entities and several of the nurses named as defendants in the original complaint "expressly denied" that their acts of omissions harmed Baril. But if they did harm him, that harm was caused by acts or omissions of Westerly Hospital and doctors practicing there, the apportionment complaint claims.
The apportionment complaint's allegations include that the Westerly defendants failed to properly treat infection at the surgical site, failed to properly communicate to Apple Rehab the nature of the infection and use of antibiotics, failed to use a muscle flap to "cover the vital vascular structures" and discharged Baril prematurely.
In its amended complaint, Baril's estate made similar allegations against the Westerly defendants, while maintaining its allegations against Apple Rehab and its nurses.
The Baril estate's suit seeks money damages and costs from all defendants, and the apportionment complaint seeks to shift a share of any liability found against the Apple defendants to the Westerly defendants.