Florida mom-to-be claims hospital worker flushed her miscarried baby down a toilet.
A woman has sued a Florida hospital, claiming an emergency room employee flushed her miscarried fetus down a toilet.
Linda Gomez filed her lawsuit last week against Wellington Regional Medical Center in Palm Beach County. She seeks unspecified damages for psychiatric trauma.
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She had gone to the facility’s emergency room in 2014, after she began bleeding 19 weeks into her pregnancy, her attorney, Kennan Dandar, said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
The woman’s lawyer said she went to use the bathroom while waiting to see a doctor, and miscarried in the toilet. The mother-to-be severed the umbilical cord with her fingernails while calling for help, Dandar said.
Eventually, an unnamed hospital worker came into the restroom and flushed the toilet, the attorney said. His client screamed “No, no, no, my baby!” as the remains were sucked away, he said.
At 19 weeks, the average fetus weighs about seven ounces, measures nine inches and is capable of kicking and rolling inside the womb.
“She saw the face of her child. It is what she remembers in her nightmares,” Dandar said.
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The employee, who was “calm, cool and collected,” told Gomez to go back to the waiting room, her lawyer said.
Gomez and members of her family asked to hospital to remove the remains from the medical center’s sewage system so Gomez could have a Christian funeral, Dandar said.
The hospital staff refused, he said.
Gomez’s husband was severely depressed by the loss and died last year in a traffic accident, Dandar said.
Hospital attorney Jay Cohen issued a statement Tuesday saying he could not comment on the woman or what transpired because of strict medical privacy laws.
The facility “intends to defend itself vigorously,” he said. “We are confident that the true facts of this situation will come out,” he said.
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