US1 min(s) read
Published 13:33 04 Sep 2020 GMT
A paramedic in suburban Detroit reportedly failed to register that a young woman who was declared dead was, in fact, alive.
He then proceeded to mislead a doctor by phone about the individual's conditions, per state authorities and as reported by Yahoo News.
More on this unbelievable story in the video below:
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A funeral home was the one to discover that 20-year-old Timesha Beauchamp was alive when she gasped while her body was being prepared for burial on August 23.
The details are found in a state license suspension filed last week against Micheal Storms, a Southfield firefighter and paramedic, who was part of a four-person team responding to the family home.
According to the publication, Beauchamp's family initially called 911 because of what appeared to be serious breathing difficulties. She has cerebral palsy.
State regulators, however, have denounced Storms' response as insufficient. Per the license suspension from the health department, Storms halted resuscitation efforts six minutes before getting permission from a doctor who was contacted by phone.
The report details that "At no point did [Storms] attempt to verify circulation or respiration" with a device such as a stethoscope, further adding: "The vital signs and description depicted to the physician were inaccurate."
Per ABC News affiliate WXYX, Beauchamp's godmother, Savannah Spears, said she "knew" she had felt a pulse in her goddaughter.
"I was holding her in my arms and as I prayed, I was feeling for a pulse," she said. "It was faint but I felt a pulse." Spears adds that paramedics dismissed her claims.
When Storms went back into the home after family members said the 20-year-old appeared to be breathing and had a pulse, he placed her on a monitor that "clearly showed" electrical activity and revealed she "was not deceased." Purportedly no action was taken.
"Both times (Storms) failed to recognize the patient was still alive," the report continues, detailing that Storms suggested that chest movement was normal due to her medication.
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The state also said that the paramedic in question altered his report when it was uploaded a second time to an incident database the next day.
Beauchamp wasn't taken to a hospital until Cole Funeral Home in Detroit called 911 several hours later. Funeral home staff claim that they saw her chest moving when they picked up the body at the Southfield home, according to the state, but Beauchamp's family said they were assured by the medical staff that she was deceased.
Beauchamp remains in critical condition at a hospital in Detroit.
The family's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, has said that only her brain stem is functioning.
"This appears to be one of the worst cases of gross negligence that I've ever encountered,” Fieger said yesterday (September 3). "She wasn't dying or near death. Had they got her to the hospital none of this would have happened."
Due to COVID-19 precautions, Beauchamp's family are only permitted to spend one hour a day with her.
