The husband of a 37-year-old Canadian woman who died in excruciating pain after waiting more than seven hours in a Nova Scotia emergency room on New Year’s Eve shared his story earlier this week, demanding answers about his wife’s untimely death.
Gunther Holthoff said his wife, Allison, woke up early on December 31 complaining of an upset stomach. He said the mother of three had fallen off a horse in September and had been experiencing pain ever since, CTV News reported.
“It’s been rough times for her,” the widowed husband said during a news conference Monday afternoon.
Allison Holthoff took a bath to ease the pain, but her condition worsened instead.
Ten minutes later, Gunther said his children alerted him about his wife rolling on the floor in pain. “She was lying on the floor in the hallway, she had laid down in pain,” he recalled.
He chose not to call 911 for an ambulance because when they used one for Allison’s horse accident, it took four to five hours to arrive and he didn’t want to risk waiting that long. Instead, he drove Allison to Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre in Amherst, arriving shortly after 11 a.m. on New Year’s Eve. The pair waited in triage for 20 minutes before being sent back to the waiting room.
Medical staff collected samples of Allison’s blood and urine, which was difficult because she was in so much pain.
Gunther had initially put his wife in a wheelchair when they entered the medical center. The pain was so intense, however, Allison ended up in the fetal position on the floor in the waiting room.
“I did tell the triage nurse and the lady behind the desk that it was getting worse,” he said. “She wasn’t doing good and was in pain.”
At some point, medical staff asked the 37-year-old to sit back in the wheelchair, according to CTV News.
Allison feared she was going to die in the hospital.
Allison’s condition deteriorated as the hours passed in the waiting room. She even told her husband she thought she was dying. “She said, ‘I feel like I’m dying. They’re going to let me die here,’” he said Monday, according to CTV News.
The pair entered an exam room around 3 p.m., when more blood and urine samples were collected. Gunther returned to the nursing desk five times, stating his wife’s pain had worsened.
Gunther recalled one of the nurses asking if his wife was ‘always like this.’
When Allison’s eyes started rolling back in her head, a nurse asked her husband if she was on drugs, to which he responded, “No.”
Allison continued to tell her husband her fears of dying in the waiting room. Around 6 p.m., Gunther recalled his wife screaming in pain and begging for help.
When a nurse came in to check her vital signs, Allison’s pulse was elevated to 100 and her blood pressure registered very low, between 40 and 60.
“Everything happened quickly after that, everyone started picking up the pace,” Gunther said. “That was the first time I actually felt like someone was paying attention to us.”
Eventually, Allison was seen by a doctor and given IV fluids and pain relievers.
She had an EKG done and was transferred to an x-ray room to determine what was going on inside her body. Gunther briefly left the room, and when he returned, he found his wife screaming in pain.
“‘I can’t breathe. I’m in pain, don’t move me, I’m in pain,’” he recalled his wife shouting in the room.
Allison’s eyes started rolling back in her head again, and a “code blue” was issued, stating the patient was going into cardiac arrest. Medical staff quickly entered the room to perform lifesaving measures on her.
“So many people coming and going. It was like a f—— train station. It was busy,” he said, according to CTV News. “It was busy.”
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Allison was resuscitated three times.
Gunther was told his wife would not survive if she had undergone surgery, and after three resuscitation attempts, he was told there was nothing more the medical staff could do. He said the doctor did reveal the CT scan that showed internal bleeding, but they couldn’t determine the primary cause of blood loss.
“They had a 1 percent chance of keeping her alive with surgery, but at that point, there was not much chance of her ever having a normal or dignified life,” Gunther said. He also noted his wife had significant blood loss to her vital organs, including her brain.
Family, friends, and her three children arrived to say their final goodbyes to her, and she was officially pronounced dead at 11 p.m. December 31.
Gunther believes his wife was neglected by the hospital’s medical staff.
“Unfortunately, I do feel like she was neglected and it was to a point where they couldn’t ignore us anymore. It was a terrible situation for my wife, for my kids, and a lot of people in the community,” he said. “I’m just lost.”
Nearly two weeks later, Gunther said he doesn’t know what led to his wife’s death because the autopsy report hasn’t been released, according to CBC. The grieving husband and several local politicians have called on the provincial government to investigate Allison’s death.
“The government doesn’t seem to pay any attention,” Gunther said. “I don’t know what needs to happen … or how many more people need to die. It’s just a shame.”
On Monday, the Department of Health and Wellness said the Nova Scotia Health Authority has launched an investigation into the case.