Hospital to be sued for negligent ER care of fatally brain-injured student

By Mary Mitchell

Published on June 05, 2006

East Carolina University student Paige Johnson was crossing a street in Greenville, N.C. late at night on Dec. 1, 2006 when she was struck by Acura and knocked to the curb. She was immediately admitted to Pitt County Memorial Hospital (PCMH) in Greenville, confused and bleeding from one ear. According to her parents, Matthew Johnson and Trish Stockus, she complained repeatedly of severe head pain over the next 27 hours, but the hospital ignored her complaints, focusing instead on her fractured leg. She underwent surgery for the leg the day after the accident, and later stopped breathing, going into cardiovascular collapse after being administered pain medication to which she'd had an adverse reaction in the ER. A physician told the parents that Johnson's brain had swelled to the point of stopping her breathing.

Johnson's parents say that they had continuously told the PCMH staff about their daughter's head pain, which Paige indicated was much greater than the pain in her leg. The autopsy report gives the cause of death as a "closed head injury due to a motor vehicle collision with a pedestrian." The family's lawyer stated that a medical malpractice lawsuit will be filed at the Pitt County Courthouse in early summer.

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