{"id":260543,"date":"2025-10-30T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/260543\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:58:09","slug":"maine-mother-suing-health-provider-says-during-trial-nobody-should-have-to-do-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/260543\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine mother suing health provider says during trial \u2018nobody should have to do this\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\"<\/a>Attorney Meryl Poulin, who represents Lyndsey Sutherland, delivered opening arguments at Cumberland County Superior Court on Monday. Sutherland, whose 15-year-old daughter died from an acute form of pediatric leukemia in 2021, sued Mid Coast Medical Group under the Maine Wrongful Death Act in 2023. (Derek Davis\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

Lyndsey Sutherland can remember that one Christmas, several years ago, when her daughter tore open a package and began squealing in excitement \u2014 she got a cellphone.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a jury in Cumberland County watched a video of the reveal and listened as Sutherland described her daughter\u2019s competitive cheerleading competitions, the shopping trips they enjoyed and the deep conversations they used to share. Jasmine Vincent\u2019s laughter on camera echoed in an otherwise silent courtroom, where jurors are weighing a wrongful death lawsuit her mother filed against a health center the teen visited four years ago, days before she died.<\/p>\n

Testing after Vincent\u2019s death showed she had a rare form of pediatric leukemia, which hadn\u2019t been diagnosed before she died. <\/p>\n

Sutherland is suing Mid Coast Medical Group, located in Brunswick and now part of MaineHealth, under the Maine Wrongful Death Act. Her lawyers say a gynecologist, Dr. Danielle Salhany, rushed to issue<\/a> an unsound diagnosis without reviewing Vincent\u2019s recent medical history or ordering an X-ray. Two experts for Sutherland testified on Tuesday that an X-ray could have helped reveal the cancer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Jasmine Vincent, holding a graduation sign for one of her sisters. (Courtesy of Lyndsey Sutherland)<\/p>\n

Salhany, who is not being sued herself, testified Tuesday<\/a> that her role was limited as a specialist who only met with Vincent once. Sutherland had also sued<\/a> Martin\u2019s Point, a health care provider where Vincent received primary care, but she dropped them from the case ahead of trial.<\/p>\n

An attorney for Mid Coast asked on Wednesday that the case be dismissed for lack of evidence. District Judge Michael Duddy denied the request.<\/p>\n

Sutherland testified on Wednesday that she had trusted Salhany\u2019s diagnosis and that the doctor\u2019s advice led her to not consider her daughter\u2019s symptoms urgent until it was too late. The 15-year-old died in an emergency room on Aug. 1, 2021, about six days after visiting Mid Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you have any idea what was happening to Jazzy?\u201d her attorney, Meryl Poulin, asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Sutherland said. \u201cIf I did, I would have done something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

CALLS WITH DOCTORS<\/p>\n

Sutherland\u2019s lawyers played recordings from several calls between her and doctors at Mid Coast and Martin\u2019s Point that July.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s Point declined to comment Monday and did not respond to several follow-up requests for comment this week.<\/p>\n

Vincent had been diagnosed at Martin\u2019s Point with walking pneumonia and prescribed prednisone, a steroid-based, anti-inflammatory medication. She was referred to Mid Coast after she developed severe swelling in her breasts and neck veins.<\/p>\n

At Mid Coast, Salhany diagnosed the teen with gynecomastia because of her swollen breasts and advised her to stop taking prednisone, which Salhany thought could be to blame. She also suggested Vincent use cold cabbage leaves or another kind of compress on her breasts, wear a loose-fitting bra and follow up with her primary care provider.<\/p>\n

Salhany testified on Tuesday she didn\u2019t consult any medical literature about gynecomastia before making the diagnosis and that she didn\u2019t review Vincent\u2019s medical records from Martin\u2019s Point to assess how the pneumonia diagnosis was reached.<\/p>\n

A gynecology expert for Sutherland\u2019s legal team, Dr. Shireen Donaldson-Ramos, testified Wednesday that gynecomastia \u201cdoesn\u2019t affect 15-year-old girls\u201d and that it\u2019s a painless condition, more often seen in men who take anabolic steroids, which are different from prednisone.<\/p>\n

Donaldson-Ramos said the problem isn\u2019t that Salhany got the diagnosis wrong. She said Salhany had an obligation to get Vincent\u2019s medical records and order further testing. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not a simple patient. This is not a simple diagnosis,\u201d Donaldson-Ramos testified. \u201cThe whole picture should have raised suspicion that something else was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sutherland testified that she had been relieved after the Mid Coast appointment to have an answer from Salhany. Sutherland called her daughter\u2019s primary care doctor the next day and asked to stop the prednisone prescription.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou believed so much in what the OBGYN had told you, that you were explaining it all in detail to her primary care provider,\u201d her attorney Meryl Poulin asked. \u201cRight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Sutherland said. <\/p>\n

\u2018NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO DO THIS\u2019<\/p>\n

Vincent\u2019s symptoms continued to worsen after the appointment with Salhany. Within three days, she couldn\u2019t stop throwing up. Martin\u2019s Point couldn\u2019t see her immediately, but referred her to the emergency room at Mid Coast Hospital. She was later transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as they arrived, Sutherland said, her daughter was surrounded by doctors who said she needed a chest tube.<\/p>\n

Sutherland began to cry while testifying but never paused, even after Duddy, the judge, offered her a break. She recalled how afraid her daughter was in the emergency room and how her skin began to turn gray.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to tell her that \u2018I\u2019m here for you,\u2019 that \u2018I\u2019m not leaving,’\u201d Sutherland said. \u201cShe just wanted to go home. \u2026 She said she just wanted to go home and watch movies with her cat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since her daughter\u2019s death, Sutherland said, she has had to sell their home in New Gloucester and their car, which Vincent had picked out, because there are too many memories.<\/p>\n

Sutherland testified that she was pursuing this case for her daughter and anyone who might find themselves in a similar position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want anybody to have to do this,\u201d she testified. \u201cNobody should have to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney Meryl Poulin, who represents Lyndsey Sutherland, delivered opening arguments at Cumberland County Superior Court on Monday. Sutherland,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-260543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}