Dead Wife Is Alive, Husband Sues Hospital

Wilmington, DE (AHN) - A man from Georgetown, Delaware has sued the Beebe Medical Center (BMC) in Lewes and its staff for allegedly wrongly declaring his wife dead in May last year.

In the suit, Louis Johnson also charged that the hospital failed to provide adequate medical care and was negligent in treating her 61-year-old wife, Judith, from her heart attack on May 6, 2007. He sought an unspecified amount of damages and penalty.

Johnson brought his wife to the hospital at 7:35 p.m. for treatment of indigestion but she soon suffered a heart attack at 8:05 p.m. Doctors called for Johnson, who was in the waiting room, and told him his wife did not respond to resuscitation and never regained a pulse so she was declared dead at 8:34 p.m.

At 9:50 p.m., a nurse noticed Judith was still breathing and alive.

In its defense, BMC vice president of corporate affairs Wallace Hudson said Johnson's wife suffered a Lazarus syndrome. In this condition, the body's circulation spontaneously returned after a failed resuscitation.