Illinois Fifth District Appellate Justice Michael D. McHaney
MOUNT VERNON, ILLINOIS - An Alton woman can't resume her legal pursuit of Alton Memorial Hospital over claims EMTs contributed to the death of her elderly 330-pound husband when the gurney on which he was riding fell over as he was being transferred from Alton Memorial to a nursing home for rehabilitation about a month and a half before his death.
On Oct. 30, the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court upheld the dismissal of the legal claims brought by plaintiff Nancy Gabriel against Alton Memorial Hospital and its ambulance service, stemming from the March 2019 death of her husband, James Gabriel.
According to the complaint, James Gabriel was a patient receiving care at Alton Memorial in early February 2019. He was discharged from Alton Memorial, to be transferred by ambulance to a nursing facility in Edwardsville to continue recovery and undergo rehabilitation, with the goal of ultimately returning him home.
According to court documents, Gabriel was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 330 pounds at the time of the transfer.
According to court documents, a two-person AMH ambulance crew - both male - were responsible for conducting the patient transfer. With the help of hospital staff, they strapped Gabriel to a gurney and loaded him into the ambulance at the hospital without incident.
However, at the nursing facility, the two EMTs unloaded Gabriel alone. While they were wheeling him into the facility, Gabriel's weight shifted and the EMTs were unable to restabilize the gurney before it fell over, causing Gabriel to land face first in a landscaped area, not on the paved surface, according to court documents.
Gabriel allegedly suffered a laceration to his face in the incident, and needed to return to Alton Memorial.
Gabriel died a few weeks later, in late March 2019. His widow then filed suit in September 2019 in Madison County Circuit Court against Alton Memorial, alleging wrongful death and other counts.
Gabriel is represented in the case by attorney Lanny Darr, of the Darr Law Offices, of Alton.
The lawsuit asserted the fall contributed to her husband's death. The complaint included assertions that Gabriel had broken a vertebra in the fall, among other injuries.
Nancy Gabriel also filed legal claims against other defendants allegedly liable for her husband's death.
According to Madison County court records, Nancy Gabriel settled in 2024 with some of those other defendants, including University Care Center and related corporate entities.
However, Gabriel's claims against Alton Memorial ended in Madison County court when Judge Christopher P. Threlkeld granted summary judgment to the hospital, agreeing there wasn't enough evidence to back Gabriel's claims that the EMTs conduct in the accident was "willful and wanton," the standard required under Illinois law to sue EMTs and amulance services.
On appeal, a three-justice panel of the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court backed Threlkeld's ruling.
"At best, construing the pleadings, affidavits, and depositions liberally in favor of Nancy (Gabriel), she can only establish the existence of a possible material issue of genuine fact regarding (the EMTs') negligence," the justices wrote. "However, there are no genuine issues of material fact in the record to support any argument that the actions, or inactions, of Brooks and Bell were willful or wanton."
They further rejected Gabriel's assertions that the burden should be on Alton Memorial to prove the EMTs had not acted in a "willful or wanton" fashion in transporting James Gabriel, leading to his fall.
The justices also noted there was no evidence introduced in court to back the claims James Gabriel had suffered a broken vertebra in the fall.
The decision was issued as an unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23, which may limit its use as precedent.
The decision was authored by Justice Michael D. McHaney. Justices James "Randy" Moore and Mark M. Boie concurred in the ruling.
