15 hours Ago By Silas Morgan
Orlando Health must pay $45 million to the family of a Central Florida father of six who died of a heart attack after the company delayed transporting him from one its smaller hospitals to Orlando Regional Medical Center, an Orange County jury decided recently. James Sada, 55, who lived in Seminole County near Heathrow, died July 26, 2020 at ORMC, according to his family’s medical malpractice lawsuit. The suit argued that Orlando Health should have transferred him to a competitor’s hospital rather than wait until its helicopter crew could airlift him to its trauma center in Orlando.
A jury sided with Sada’s family on April 9 and awarded his wife and two of his children $15 million each. The jury ruled Orlando Health had acted with reckless disregard. Sada initially arrived at an Orlando Health hospital in Longwood — one that has since moved to Lake Mary — but that facility could not treat his heart problems, the lawsuit said.
He should have then been transferred to a nearby hospital — the lawsuit did not mention which one — but instead he waited until a crew could fly him to ORMC, it said. “You have these two humongous corporate healthcare entities that are so busy competing with each other. We can’t allow them to forget that the patient needs come before the success of their corporation,” said Stuart Ratzan, whose law firm represented Sada’s family.
Orlando Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sada was taken by ambulance around 8 a.m.
that July day to Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital. The hospital decided to fly him to ORMC but because of Sada’s weight, the helicopter was too heavy to fly, the lawsuit said. So the crew spent 23 minutes burning fuel to drop its weight before flying him to Orlando, according to a news release from the family’s legal team.
The family’s attorneys argued staff at the South Seminole hospital should have told the ambulance to drive him to a nearby hospital outside the Orlando Health network where he could have been treated. Instead, they kept him at their facility and waited for an airlift to ORMC, even after learning there would be a delay getting him transported. The complaint also said Sada was not informed that he had the option to go to a different hospital.
Once at ORMC, Sada began to complain he was having trouble breathing. His condition soon deteriorated, and he died about 10 a.m.
Sada owned an auto repair business, Expert Car Care, which had several stores in Central Florida. He and his wife had six children and also served as foster parents to dozens of others. Sada’s two youngest children, including a boy who was 8 at the time of his father’s death, each received a $15 million award from the jury.
Sada also volunteered as a coach in the Pop Warner Little Scholars nonprofit. “He was devoted to children of all stripes, not just the foster children,” Ratzan said. “He was a leader at home and a leader in the community, and somebody that a lot of people felt a lot of love for.
” The jury’s verdict, Ratzan said, should inspire changes at Orlando Health and elsewhere. “I think that it should, and I think it will do so around the country,” he said..
