Family faults Vista, doctor for woman’s suicide
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Family members seek damages from a mental health facility that did not accept a relative for inpatient treatment five days before she committed suicide in 2005.
An eight-woman and fourman jury was selected Monday for a three-day wrongful death trial before 4 th Judicial Circuit Judge William Storey.
The estate of Judy Caldiero and Andy Caldiero, her husband, is seeking unspecified damages from Vista Health in Fayetteville. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages from a separate defendant, Dr. Lewis Britton, the psychiatrist who reviewed Judy Caldiero's assessment prepared by a Vista Health employee.
Caldiero was 58 when she shot herself at home with a handgun she bought at a pawn shop. The family thinks she would still be alive today if she had been accepted for inpatient treatment.
The defendants claim that she did not appear to be in immediate danger of suicide and the recommended outpatient treatment was reasonable.
Caldiero's two daughters took her to Vista Health for an assessment on Nov. 25, 2005, because she apparently had tried to commit suicide one week earlier through carbon monoxide poisoning. She reportedly suffered from anxiety and severe depression and had talked about suicidal tendencies on several occasions.
Judy Caldiero had pictures of her family in her car with the engine running inside her closed garage before aborting the apparent suicide attempt and calling her daughter for help, jurors heard during opening statements.
Her daughter, Mara Lord, testified that she came to Arkansas to seek help for her mother after learning about the suicide attempt. She said she and her sister began searching for an appropriate facility for her mother on Nov. 21, 2005, a Monday, and went with her sister to Vista Health the next day to tour the facility.
Lord testified she was told her mother would need to come willingly to Vista Health, have her bags packed and make an appointment. She testified she was told on Wednesday that Friday was the quickest officials could schedule an evaluation for her mom.
Mark Breeding, an attorney representing Vista Health, denied this alleged delay during opening arguments. He said the facility advertises on its Web site that it is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to patients needing a mental assessment. The family wanted to come on Friday because Thursday was Thanksgiving, he said.
An assessment prepared by Karen Hatch at Vista Health reportedly showed that Caldiero suffered from anxiety and depression and had suicidal tendencies, as well as other medical problems. Britton reviewed the assessment and recommended outpatient treatment through a local psychiatrist for Caldiero.
Lord testified that Hatch returned after apparently talking to Britton and asked her mom if she was suicidal "right now. "Her mom said no, and Hatch said she was not "acute enough"to be admitted right then, Lord testified.
"I was terrified and angry," she said.
She said she told Hatch: "There has to be something you can do."
Caldiero was knitting on Saturday when she told her husband and Lord that she wanted to go to Wal-Mart and buy some yarn. That's when Lord's mother bought the gun at a pawn shop, Lord testified.
Judy Caldiero shot herself on Wednesday as her husband, Andy, was taking Lord to the airport to fly home.
Defense attorneys told jurors about a long history of medical problems that Caldiero had suffered, including food reaction problems and a brain tumor. She went to Tijuana, Mexico, for experimental treatment for these eating disorders.
They also pointed out that Caldiero had previously attempted suicide and had been treated on an outpatient basis on at least a couple of other occasions.
James Estes, the attorney for Britton, said the doctor was not to blame for Caldiero's death.
"He made a judgment call, but that did not cause her to pull the trigger," Estes said.
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