Around ten o’clock in the morning on August 17th, 2012, I called Steve Phillips to let him know about my conversation with the medical examiner, but he didn’t answer his phone. I left him a voice mail message asking him to return my call.
Kathie Gagne died 4,513 days ago.
August 17th, 2012 @ 7:10 am
August 17th, 2012 @ 6:45 am
I called the office of the Volusia County Medical Examiner this morning since I did not hear from anyone there yesterday. 1 I asked for Bob Burch and was told that he has the day off today. I asked for Dr. Hermann and the person who had answered the phone asked me, “What case is this regarding?”
I said that I was calling about Kathleen Gagne, who died on Sunday and that I was still waiting to hear if they were going to perform an autopsy. I was put on hold.
A minute later Chris Boden came on the line. He said that, “doctors reviewed her medical records. They have reviewed them extensively, and determined that it’s not a medical examiner case.”
I asked how they came to that decision, and Chris said that they reviewed all the records 2, and that it, “appears to be a natural death.” He then gave me a long and complicated medical explanation which I asked him to repeat slowly so I could transcribe it, because he said it so quickly. Here is the quote:
After review of records, findings support fatal cardiac arrhythmia secondary to accelerated cardiac ventricular response; contributing to the cause of death is myocardial ischemia due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
We talked for a long while 3 about how I considered it absurd that someone would be discharged from Halifax Hospital four times in the last nine months — with doctors telling me that she has no health issues, that she’s perfectly fine physically, that she’s actually very healthy and simply has some psychological problems — the most recent discharge being just thirty-six hours before her heart attack — and simultaneously just been prescribed a dramatically dangerous drug — for a condition nobody ever suggested she had by a doctor who saw her only one time — known to cause heart attacks in elderly individuals and they could claim she died of natural causes.
I asked him what my next step should be and Chris suggested that I could have a private autopsy done and the funeral home holding my mother’s body could help me arrange one.
I asked him what his next step was going to be and he said he was going to contact Dr. Peele to tell him that “it’s not a medical examiner case, so that puts it back in his hands to take care of.”
I asked Chris exactly what determines whether the medical examiner performs an autopsy and he said there were very specific guidelines. I asked him if these guidelines were public and he said, “Oh, yes. Florida Statute 406 determines,” when they need to do an autopsy.
I asked him if he would be kind enough to call me after he spoke with Dr. Peele, since Dr. Peele had already told me that he was refusing to sign the death certificate because he wanted an autopsy performed. Chris told me that he would. I asked him if he was just saying that or if he really would, and he told me I had his word that he would call me.
I asked Chris what his last name was and he said it was Boden. I thanked him and said goodbye.
1 recall that on August 14th Bob Burch told me that this would all be resolved by the afternoon of the 15th
2 Yes, he noted that the “records” had been “reviewed” three times in about ten seconds.
3 The entire call lasted twenty-four minutes.
August 16th, 2012 @ 9:57 am
A few days after she arrived at Cusack Mortuary, Dr. Cusack emailed me looking for an update:
Good Morning Mr. Gagne,
Just wanted to check in with you and see what was the lastest. Also wondering if you had a photo of your mother that you could send me in jpg form to add it to our website.
Thanks!!
I replied a couple of hours later, at 12:30 PM:
Hello, Dr. Cusack,
I’m sorry that I have no news to report. I am still waiting to hear from the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s office.
I will find you a photo as soon as I can and email it to you. Thank you very much.
Can you please confirm that my mother’s body is safe and secure?
Dr. Cusack wrote me at 3:20 PM:
Absolutely. She is here in our refrigeration facility and I checked on her earlier this afternoon. She is just fine. I do realize how slow the medical examiner’s office is. I will try to assist in anyway possible on our end.
I mainly wanted you to know that we were not overlooking you with our other families.
Take care
August 16th, 2012 @ 9:05 am
I called Woodland Terrace and Rosa answered the phone. I said, “This is David Gagne,” and she asked, “How are you doing?”
I ignored her question and told her that I wanted to know what I needed to do to have my dad retrieve my mom’s personal belongings. She told me that they had collected everything she had and were keeping it “in a safe place”, and that my dad could ask for Heather, the head of housekeeping, when he arrived.
I told Rosa that we were sitting in the parking lot, which seemed to surprise her. She said that she would page Heather to get mom’s stuff and she’d bring it to the front desk.
My dad went into the building and I sat in the car and waited. After fifteen minutes my dad came out to the car with an arrangement of flowers and told me to pull around to the front of the building. I did that while my dad walked over there to meet two women carrying boxes. They put the boxes in the trunk while I sat in the front seat staring out the window. I heard one of them say, “This one’s pretty big,” but that was all. My dad got in the car and we left.
The flowers had a 3″x4″ envelope and inside, addressed to me, was a folded piece of paper. Printed on an old dot-matrix line-printer, it read:
WITH DEEPEST SYMPATHY FROM WOODLAND TERRACE
August 16th, 2012 @ 8:10 am
I called Detective Whittier of the Deland Police Department to see if he had any update. I know that he had said he was going to go to Woodland Terrace this morning to attempt to talk to Dr. Peele in person. He did not answer, so I left him a voice mail.
August 16th, 2012 @ 5:35 am
Four days after my mother’s death, Michelle Cofano, the Registered Nurse Specialist at the Department of Elder Affairs — also known as C.A.R.E.S. — replied to the email I sent her asking for help. She said:
Hey David,
Below is the information you requested:There is a program within the Department of Elder Affairs called: Ombudsman Program. This program investigates and resolves complaints made by, or on behalf of, long-term care facility residents. Please visit the website at: http://ombudsman.myflorida.com or call them at: 1-888-831-0404.
There is also an agency called: AHCA. This agency takes and investigates complaints about all healthcare institutions. Please visit the website at: http://ahca.myflorida.com and go to “Contact Us” for info on how to file a complaint.
Thank You,
Michelle Cofano
I replied to her at 11:11 PM EDT on August 17th by saying:
Dear Michelle,
My mother had a heart attack and died the day after I sent you that email. I’m in Florida now.
The doctor who prescribed the medicine never called me to discuss it, even after I refused to approve it. They simply gave it to her anyway.
And now my mother is dead.
The doctor who was caring for my mother refused to sign the death certificate because he said, “I don’t know why she died. She shouldn’t have died,” and, “I want them to perform an autopsy,” and, “An autopsy will give us the answers.”
Then the Volusia County Medical Examiner decided that an autopsy wasn’t necessary; that my mother died “of natural causes”. They are not interested in the facts that she had a heart attack just after a psychiatrist who had never seen her before, who had only one session with her which lasted less than an hour — and truthfully probably lasted less than fifteen minutes — prescribed a highly, highly risky drug, which comes with multiple warnings from its manufacturer not to use in elderly patients with dementia and only to use as a last resort for schizophrenics, and then only if a doctor can vigilantly monitor the patient’s cardiac functions because the risk of a heart attack is so high, without ever anyone saying that my mom had schizophrenia, a drug that I begged doctors to stop giving her in January, a drug that I spent hours and hours on the phone with the nursing home begging them not to give her, a drug that they told me they would NOT give her …
And suddenly — when he learned there would be no autopsy — the doctor changed his mind and signed the death certificate.
My mother is dead. She’ll never get to know her grandson. I’ll never hear her voice again.
And nobody cares.
Update: Michelle replied to me via email at 11:21 AM EDT on August 21st. She said, “Dear David, I truly am very sorry. My condolences go out to you and your family.”
August 15th, 2012 @ 2:22 pm
A little after five o’clock in the afternoon of August 15th, just a few days after mom died, attorney Steve Phillips returned my call. I explained to him the events of the last week and quickly gave him an overview of everything that has happened over the last nine months.
Mr. Phillips told me that he would be unavailable in the morning of the 16th but would call me as soon as he could after lunch, and that he would review kathiegagne.com that night.
We spoke for nineteen minutes.
August 15th, 2012 @ 1:03 pm
I called 1 the office of the Volusia County Medical Examiner to see if I could get an update on whether they had decided to do an autopsy on my mother’s body. I asked the woman who answered the phone if I could speak to Mr. Burch. She said, “Can I tell him who’s calling?” and I replied, “Sure. This is David Gagne.”
Bob Burch picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”
I said that I was me and he told me that they had “requested additional records” and had not yet made a decision. I told him that I was only calling because he had said that I would have an answer by this afternoon and it was four o’clock. He said that Dr. Hermann “had reviewed some of” the records and they were waiting for more, including the “ambulance run sheets”. I asked him if he could be more specific, if he was waiting on records from Halifax hospital or from the nursing home or … and he said he was waiting on “all of it”.
I told Bob that the hospital 2 had specifically told me (and Detective Whittier) that they had received no paperwork, medical records, or documentation at all from the paramedics or nursing home when my mom arrived there. He said that was very common, that the ambulances, “never drop off their run sheets”.
I told Bob that they could call me if they had any questions about anything at all and he said, “Oh, we’re gonna get the answers.”
I thanked him and said goodbye.
The entire call lasted four minutes.
1 Note that this website is published on the West coast; this call started at 4:03 PM EDT.
2 Fish Memorial Hospital in Deland, FL, where my mother was pronounced dead
August 15th, 2012 @ 1:02 pm
I called 1 the cell phone number for Dr. Marie Hermann, the chief medical examiner of Volusia County, because it was four o’clock in the afternoon 2 and — as far as I know — they have not yet made a decision as to whether they’re going to perform an autopsy on my mother’s body.
Dr. Hermann did not answer the phone, so I left her a voice mail message with my name and phone number and asked her to return my call.
Update: As of 1:35 AM EDT on August 16th I have not been informed of their decision, or if one has been made.
1 Note that this website displays times as Pacific; this call occurred at 4:02 PM EDT.
2 Note that yesterday Bob Burch told me I would have an answer by this afternoon.
August 15th, 2012 @ 12:40 pm
A couple of days after mom died, I called 1 the Law Offices of Michael Bard at (800) 516-2132 and spoke to a woman named Laurie, who answered the phone there.
She asked me to explain what sort of problem I was facing and I explained — quickly — the events of the last week. I began by telling her that my mother passed away on Sunday, and — when I was finished — the first thing she asked me was on what day my mother had died.
Laurie told me that I should call them when I had the “cause of death” from the death certificate. I told her (again) that the doctor was refusing to sign the death certificate because he doesn’t understand why my mother died. She responded by saying that we would learn that from the autopsy. I told her (again) that the medical examiner’s office is refusing to do an autopsy.
She said that it’s only been a few days, and they would have to “figure it out” soon enough and then I could call back when I knew the official cause of death.
The entire call lasted about five minutes.
1 Note that this website displays times as Pacific; this call occurred at 3:40 PM EDT.