You Bet Your Life
May 14, 2007
There is a need for more stories like this one. behind each statistical number, there is a family who is forever scared by simple mistakes.
In a shocking report, more people die from medical mistakes each year than from highway accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. And in California, a little known law puts a price tag on what the state says your life is worth. Now, a Simi Valley family blames a local hospital’s errors for robbing their daughter of her young and innocent life.
“She died in my arms,” Jodi Gonzalez said. “The doc kept coming over and putting the stethoscope to her heart. ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ She said, ‘The heart is still beating and we have to record the time of death.’ See, she didn’t want to die.”
In the very same UCLA hospital Delaney Lucille Gonzalez was born in, just 16 months later, the toddler would die in.
Medical Malpractice: Putting a Price on Life