File photo of a Stamford Hospital sign. A Stamford woman and her husband are suing the hospital and its parent company, Stamford Health, contending the woman blinded herself with a plastic fork due to inadequate monitoring in the psychiatric unit.
Hearst Connecticut Media
STAMFORD — A lawsuit set for trial contends that Stamford Hospital failed to monitor a woman who blinded herself with a plastic fork.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin June 25 at state Superior Court in Bridgeport, more than three years after the woman and her husband sued the hospital and its parent company, Stamford Health Inc.
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In a statement sent Wednesday afternoon, a Stamford Health spokesperson said, “Stamford Health is committed to providing safe, high-quality care to all patients. As this is the subject of ongoing litigation, we are unable to comment on this specific matter.”
The Stamford woman, now 61, was admitted to the hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit after a medication overdose in January 2022, the complaint says. Early on Jan. 13, hospital staff learned that the woman, “antagonized by intrusive thoughts of harming herself,” had stabbed both of her eyes repeatedly with a fork given to her at mealtime, the suit says. The permanent damage rendered her legally blind, the complaint says.
Hospital staff only realized the severity of the patient’s wounds after she self-reported the injuries at the nursing station while “blood poured from both eyes,” the lawsuit says. Hearst Connecticut Media Group is not naming the woman due to the nature of the case.
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The hospital should have assigned staff to monitor the patient, one on one, around the clock for self injurious behavior, the suit says. Instead, staff failed to provide safety checks at even the minimum level, according to the complaint.
Earlier in her life, the plaintiff was a “fitness fanatic who was known for completing one-arm pushups, open water swimming and hiking mountains across the Northeast and Europe,” the complaint says. In 2020, however, prompted by menopause, she began a slide into worsening depression, according to court documents.
In November 2021, she sought inpatient treatment at Stamford Hospital after an attempted fatal overdose on prescribed medication, the complaint says. She was discharged, but returned to the hospital in January 2022 during “one of her lowest moments,” according to the suit.
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After deciding not to place her on one-to-one monitoring, hospital staff ordered checks at 15-minute intervals, but failed at even that minimum level of monitoring, the suit says.
When a staffer told her that she would not be leaving the psychiatric unit “any time soon,” the woman, who was planning with her husband to enter another mental health care facility, spiraled into despair and began harming herself with the plastic fork, the plaintiffs allege. Over a total of at least four hours on Jan. 12 and 13, the woman was unattended and “left alone to continue to harm herself,” according to court documents.
Hospital staff failed to conduct the 15-minute safety checks and then deleted video surveillance footage before midnight on Jan. 12, the plaintiffs allege. Staff also failed to take appropriate action when they first saw blood on the woman’s face on the night of Jan. 12, long before she came to the nurse’s station with a blood-covered face at about 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 13, according to the plaintiffs.
A state Department of Public Health investigation found that hospital staff failed to increase monitoring of the woman after she was found with swollen eyes and blood on her face on the night of Jan. 12 and that the hospital also failed to ensure the woman’s eating utensils were returned after she ate.
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In August 2024, the plaintiffs offered to settle the case for $15 million, but nothing came of the offer, according to court documents.
This week, plaintiffs’ attorney Christopher Mattei filed a motion to preclude the testimony of an expert witness for the defense, in part because he was introduced just weeks before the trial. Dr. Samuel Isaac Kohrman, a board‑certified psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, is expected to testify about the standard of care in inpatient psychiatric units, including risk assessment and monitoring levels, according to an expert witness disclosure filed by the defendants.
“He is further expected to offer opinions that the psychiatric care provided in this case was consistent with accepted standards of practice, that clinical decisions regarding observation level and supervision were appropriate, and that the patient’s injuries were the result of her own intentional and concealed conduct rather than any deviation from the standard of care,” according to the defendants’ expert witness disclosure.
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No court decision on the motion to preclude Kohrman’s testimony had been filed in online court records as of Wednesday.