NY family files suit after daughter with CP dies after teeth extraction

From the NY Daily News:

It was just a trip to the dentist.

Even though Felita Dowdy (pictured) had cerebral palsy, she should have been home within hours of having her teeth extracted.

But the 33-year-old Bronx woman never left St. Luke's Hospital in uptown Manhattan.

She went into respiratory arrest, suffered brain damage and died three months later of complications from the surgery, an autopsy report says.

Her mother and stepfather are heartbroken and angry - and they're suing the hospital and dentist for wrongful death.

"It was torture seeing my daughter getting worse and worse - and there was nothing you could do about it," Dowdy's mother, Brenda, told the Daily News.

"No parent should have to go through this."

Born with cerebral palsy, Felita was full of energy.

She hadn't spoken in several years, since the death of her grandparents, who helped take care of her for many years.

She could dress herself and loved to dance to R&B classics and play little jokes on her home aides.

"She'd wake up at 6 a.m. every day and go into the kitchen, making noise to tell us she was hungry," her mother said. "She had so much energy, she'd run around the apartment all day."

She was about to start a program at United Cerebral Palsy in Manhattan - but first her parents wanted to take care of her teeth, which had rotted because of her medical condition.

Last July 23, St. Luke's chief dentist, Dr. Bruce Lish, removed the teeth. After her daughter was out of surgery, Brenda Dowdy noticed a commotion and realized something was wrong.

"My child! My child!" she screamed, pleading for answers that she still doesn't have.

For the next three months, she slept at her daughter's hospital bedside, with relatives coming in to relieve her from time to time.

On Oct. 14, Felita Dowdy died. The family filed suit in Bronx Supreme Court, seeking unspecified damages, last week.

Their lawyer, Stuart Kitchner, said a dose of the painkiller fentanyl was a "contributing factor" in Felita's death.

"The crux of this case is that there was a failure to monitor herpostoperative care and treatment," he said.

The dentist could not be reached for comment. His father, Jerome Lish, said his son was out of town at a convention and defended him.

"He takes care of many disabled patients," said the elder Lish, also a dentist.

A hospital spokesman said the suit hadn't been served yet.

"The entire St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital community extends its sincere condolences to the Dowdy family on the death of their beloved daughter and understands how painful their loss is," spokesman Jim Mandler said.

"Despite our best efforts to keep lines of communication open with the family, we can no longer offer any comment at this time because the matter is now in litigation."

The family said Felita's death has been especially hard on her 3-year-old brother, Justin - the son of her father and another woman - who remembers seeing her driven away in an ambulette in July. "He's always asking to go to heaven to see his sister," said Brenda Dowdy, 55, who cares for the boy. "He wants to go into the ambulance and get his sister back."

Her husband, Tony Lennon, sat in the Soundview apartment poring over photos.

"She was so strong mentally and physically," Lennon said. "She was always clowning around, making jokes and playing with her little brother.

"We sit here and cry so many nights," he said of him and his wife.

"I can't console her, she can't console me."