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Family Awarded $40 Million In Lawsuit Against Detroit Hospital

DETROIT (WWJ) -- The family of a woman who died following a visit to a Detroit hospital has been awarded $40 million.

A Wayne County jury has awarded the family of 26-year-old Terrea Holly $40 million dollars following a 2-week trial. Holly died after the Detroit Receiving Hospital mishandled her treatment for pulmonary embolism.

The family of Holly says she had shortness of breath and other symptoms related to pulmonary embolism but when she went to the ER at Detroit Receiving Hospital, they told her it was a virus and sent her home. She died the next day.

According to the family's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, the hospital staff never even did blood work on Holly to see what was wrong.

"The DMC advertises that they are the clot busters and that if you're experiencing shortness of breath and rapid heartbeat that it could be a pulmonary embolism and that you should come right in, which she did," Fieger told WWJ Newsradio 950's's Zahra Huber. "She had all the classic signs of pulmonary embolism and had they done a simple blood test they would have diagnosed it, given here a blood thinner and she'd be alive."

The deliberation period took just under three hours with the jury announcing their verdict late on Monday.

Fieger said that while this is a $40 million verdict, the family will only receive a "small fraction" of the total thanks to the legal legislature.

"It's important to know that people can get justice," Fieger said. "It's also important for people to know that regardless even when you get justice that the legislature has passed laws to take away your money so that the family, even though the verdict is $40 million, the family will get just a small fraction of that."

In a statement, the Detroit Medial Center says Detroit Receiving Hospital is committed to providing safe, high-quality care to their patients and they are disappointed with the verdict.

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