Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003290204
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
The training is among the issues surrounding Gathers' death that will loom in a malpractice and negligence lawsuit that Dr. Bruce G. Fagel, a lawyer for the athlete's family, said he planned to file based on medical records he obtained from Gathers' doctors and family.
The litigation will open to public scrutiny medical information that is now protected by patient-doctor confidentiality and could have a bearing on determining how well prepared the doctors and the school were to respond when the 6-foot-7 senior collapsed during a game here March 4.
Gathers was pronounced dead at a hospital less than two hours later.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office found that Gathers had died of cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disorder of unknown cause that damaged both lower heart chambers, or ventricles.
Scarring and irritation from the disorder is believed to have triggered the dangerous heart rhythm that doctors had documented in earlier tests on Gathers.
The doctors and team officials declined to be interviewed on instructions from their lawyers, who cited the threatened lawsuit and lack of permission from the Gathers family to discuss confidential medical information.
These questions now arise from the medical examiner's autopsy report, interviews with lawyers representing the Gathers family, Loyola Marymount University, the athlete's doctors, and medical sources familiar with the case:
Why was a defibrillator that Loyola Marymount bought to counter the very type of medical catastrophe that killed Gathers not used on the court immediately after he collapsed?
How much time elapsed before rescue workers did use a defibrillator to try to resuscitate him?
Were the prescribed amounts of the drug he was given, propranolol, adequate to control the dangerous heart rhythm?
Why didn't the doctors do a medical procedure, a heart muscle biopsy, that could have led to a diagnosis of the precise nature of the heart disorder?
Why did the responsible doctor fail to complete a formal medical report as hospital rules required after Gathers was diagnosed as having the heart disorder following his first collapse in a game in December?
Fagel, the Gathers' family lawyer who has a medical background, said he had been unable to determine whether one of these officials or an ambulance paramedic first used a defibrillator to shock Gathers' heart and how much time elapsed before the shocks were administered.
Videotapes that Fagel said he reviewed showed no evidence that the device was used on the basketball court.
Time is critical in trying to restore a normal heart rhythm to someone who was known to be vulnerable to the development of a dangerous heart rhythm called ventricular tachycardia.
Dr. Douglas P. Zipes, an expert in heart rhythm disorders at Indiana University Medical School in Indianapolis, said that the chances of resuscitating such an individual "are about 90 percent if you shock the heart within 30 seconds, maybe even two minutes, after its onset."
by CNB