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Facts Matter
Judge Awards Baby's Family Nearly $1 Billion Compensation After Hospital Botched Delivery
00:05:47
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Over in Utah, a state judge has just awarded a family nearly $1 billion in compensation after a local hospital completely botched the delivery of their baby girl to the point that the baby will likely suffer from a lifetime of disabilities. Let me give you the backstory of what led to this giant settlement. Husband and wife, Anissa Zancanelli and Daniel McMichael.
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They lived in Wyoming and and they.
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Were expecting a child together. Anissa was pregnant with a baby girl. However, on October 12th of 2019, when the husband and wife were on a short vacation over in Salt Lake City, Utah, Anissa suddenly went into labor. And so she and her husband had to go. They were basically forced to go to a local hospital for the delivery. Here's how the lawsuit describes what took place at that local hospital.
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Quote Zancanelli and McMichael had been on a short getaway in Salt Lake City away from their Wyoming home, when the wife went into labor on October 12, 2019, and was forced to deliver her girl at the local hospital, Jordan Valley Medical Center. But the nurses, who'd only finished their training the day that Ms. Zancanelli was admitted, pushed excessive amounts of the labor inducing drug Pitocin for hours, despite alarm bells like the baby's blood pressure rising and the fact that the drug wasn't working to dilate Ms. Zancanelli. When the nurses finally told the on call doctor about the baby's alarming blood pressure and the mom's fever, the doctor simply went back to sleep in a room mere footsteps from where the labor was underway. When the baby was delivered via C section, she had a misshapen head, a swollen face and bruising and bulging on the front of her scalp. The baby had to be airlifted to Primary Children's Hospital's intensive care unit in Salt Lake City for a slew of complications involving having been without sufficient oxygen during labor.
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Now that is a nightmare. There's no other way to describe that situation. You go to an American hospital to give birth to your baby, only to be administered dangerous levels of drugs by nurses who, unbeknownst to you, had just finished their training that day and a doctor napping in the next room. And this conflagration of buffoonery led to what was likely going to be a beautiful baby girl. To instead being a child, still beautiful but forced to live with disabilities maybe for the rest of her life.
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Azalie, which is the baby's name, now needs 247 care because of regular seizures. She is mostly non verbal and lacks the cognitive and executive functioning of others her age. Doctors think she'll never be able to carry out normal activities like driving a car, attending college, or working. Azalie's seizures are so frequent that the family, including her younger sister, all sleep in a giant bed to be close in case one of the attacks happens while she's asleep. And they take oxygen with them everywhere they go. To help with the seizures. The young girl receives physical and occupational therapy and can only attend kindergarten for a few hours every day.
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And so the parents filed a lawsuit against the owners of the hospital, saying that essentially their daughter's life had been stolen due to the gross negligence that took place in that delivery room. Now, as a caveat to this lawsuit part of the story, I have to quickly mention the ownership structure of this particular hospital, because at the time that this incident took place, the Jordan Valley Medical center was owned by a company called Stewart Healthcare. Later, though, that hospital was actually acquired.
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By another company called Common Spirit Health.
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And then that hospital was renamed to the Holy Cross Hospital, West Valley.
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Now, the reason that I bring up.
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This change in ownership is because it's.
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Relevant to what happened at trial.
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You see the lawsuit that was filed by the husband and wife, it was suing Steward Healthcare, the owners of that particular hospital in the year 2019. However, here's how that actually wound up playing out.
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Steward denied the allegations and any liability in May 2024 court papers. But later that year, its lawyers asked to withdraw from the case on the grounds that they were no longer getting paid and were having trouble getting in contact with the company. The judge approved their withdrawal, but the company never appointed new lawyers.
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That's all likely because the company had actually filed for bankruptcy. Even outside of this particular case, with his husband and wife, they owned billions of dollars to various creditors.
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And so with that as the backdrop.
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The judge in the case, he ruled against this company in favor of the husband and wife. And writing this in his Official ruling.
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Quote, Ms. Zancanelli would have been better off delivering this baby at the bathroom of a gas station or in a hut somewhere in Africa than in this hospital. Literally, this was the most dangerous place on the planet for her to have given birth. And the person Azale was to be, the person she deserved to be, is trapped inside a brain damaged child. I cannot think of anything more profound, total or complete than that loss.
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And as such, he awarded the family $951 million, the largest compensation in Utah state history. However, realistically, according to the family's lawyers, they'll be lucky to see even half of that money owing to that aforementioned bankruptcy quote.
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But the family must now attempt to collect on their award from the embattled hospital chain which is currently in bankruptcy as it owes billions to various creditors. Ms. Zancanelli's lawyers hope that they will be able to collect at least the punitive damages against Steward or half the total award.
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And so there you have it. I guess you can say a bittersweet ending to a terrible story. If you'd like to read the judge's full ruling or the text of the lawsuit itself, which breaks down what happened more granularly, I'll throw the links to both. They'll be down in the description box below this video, which is that same description box right below those like and subscribe buttons, both of which I hope you take a moment to smash so this story can reach ever more people. And then until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times.
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