Exclusive: Family of Man Who Died after Falling Off Operating Table Speaks Out
KSTP TV

For the first time, the family of a St. Paul man who fell off a hospital operating table and later died is speaking out. They're furious about St. Joseph Hospital's response to Monday's verdict that determined the hospital was negligent. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS talked exclusively with the son of 61-year-old Max DeVries.

"He was a great guy," said Shawn DeVries. His father doted on his five grandchildren and two great grandchildren, and his vintage cars. "I miss talking to him, being able to call him up any time and talk to him."

In February 2010, while Max was trying to hook up a new TV he'd just bought, "he had fallen down in his apartment and couldn't get back up," Shawn said. Max suffered a stroke and underwent several surgeries at HealthEast St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, including one to remove part of his skull.

"But he was writing, communicating and just being himself," Shawn said, explaining that his father seemed well on the road to recovery.

Yet then, when hospital staff was preparing him for another more-routine procedure, Max somehow rolled off the operating table while sedated. According to court testimony, he landed on his head.

"He bled out more than two eight ounce coffee cups of blood on the floor," said Robert Hajek, the DeVries family's attorney.

When the hospital called Shawn to let him know what had happened, he said his first response was "you gotta be kidding me." Max's condition worsened and he fell into a coma. A month later, his family chose to take him off life support and he died. "I didn't know if he was in pain," Shawn said, "and I thought it was better for him just to let him go at that point."

The DeVries family filed a lawsuit against the hospital claiming that it lacked appropriate facilities and equipment to perform an operation on DeVries. "The nurse that was attending to him stepped away from the bed and answered the phone and the fall occurred," Hajek said. "That was from the testimony of the nurse herself."

Last June, a judge ruled that St. Joseph's was negligent. The hospital, though, maintained that DeVries actually died as a result of a new and unrelated stroke that occurred 12 days after his fall. A jury, however, discounted that notion this past Monday, determining the table fall was indeed the cause of death.

"The verdict was a relief at first," Shawn said.

But then the hospital issued a statement from its Vice President and CEO Sara Criger Tuesday, first extending its sympathies to the Devries family, but adding, "...despite the jury verdict, the medical evidence definitively proved there was no relationship between the fall and the patient's later stroke or his death."

"It's just like an apology that they immediately retract in the same breath," Shawn said. Is he angry? "Very angry, yes."

Hajek added, "You know it's just, it is just wrong behavior. It's irresponsible. It does not allow this family the closure that it needs."

The jury awarded Max DeVries' family $225,000 in damages. Yet what they really want, says Shawn, is something priceless. "A little accountability from St Joseph's would be nice," he said. "Or just for them to not say anything at all would have been better."

St. Joseph's initially agreed to speak to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS on Wednesday, but shortly before the meeting was to occur, a spokeswoman called to cancel. The hospital said its Tuesday statement will remain its only official comment.

Mark Saxenmeyer can be reached at msaxenmeyer@kstp.com