Low blood count

Former nursing student dies 

after visit to Samaritan Hospital

 

By David Baker

November 11, 2022

The husband of a woman who graduated in 2010 from Samaritan's nursing school is suing the hospital after she was sent home by Samaritan Hospital doctors with low white blood cell and blood platelet counts and was pronounced dead back at the hospital three days later.

  The patient, Melissa McMahon had two children. She was 31 years old.

   The lawsuit was filed in July 2020 by Sean McMahon of Pittstown, Rensselaer County. 

   The lawsuit alleges “…that on August 1, 2018 laboratory testing revealed that the decedent had a low white blood cell count of 2.8 and a low platelet count of 126. Notwithstanding, the defendants herein negligently and improperly discharged the decedent from the hospital and sent her home. [And] that on August 3, 2018, the decedent suffered cardiopulmonary arrest at her residence and was brought to Samaritan Hospital for continued care and treatment, however could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead.”

   According to the complaint, the cause of death was “…a significant hemorrhage in her gastrointestinal tract.”

   The complaint names as defendants Samaritan Hospital; St. Peters’s Health Partners; and two companies that provide physicians and other staff to medical facilities.. 

   In July 2021, attorneys for the hospital served subpoenas on the New York State Police seeking records of its investigation of an autopsy, and on Rensselaer County for copies of audio recordings of 911 calls on August 3, 2020.

    An obituary published on August 7, 2020 says Mellisa McMahon graduated from Lansingburgh High School in 2004, earned a Bachelor Degree from SUNY at Albany in 2008 and a nursing degree from Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing in 2010. It says she then worked as a nurse, but it could not be determined where she was employed.

***

NEXT: Wrong injection leaves a baby with permanent injuries.