A Utah judge awarded a family nearly $1 billion dollars — the largest in the state’s history — after a hospital was so negligent in handling a baby girl’s delivery that she will likely suffer a lifetime of disabilities, according to a report.
Anyssa Zancanella, Danniel McMicheal and their 5-year-old daughter Azaylee were awarded $951 million by Judge Patrick Corum earlier this month after he found Steward Health Care liable for the botched delivery of the newborn in West Valley City, Utah on Oct. 14, 2019.
The nurses assigned to Zancanella at Jordan Valley Medical Center — then owned by Steward — were so green they’d barely finished their training, and they gave the mom dangerous doses of a labor-inducing drug while the on-call doctor slept in a nearby room, the family’s lawsuit filed in 2021 alleged.
Azaylee wasn’t delivered until more than a day later — and after a long-overdue C-section, the suit claimed.
Zancanella “would have been better off delivering this baby at the bathroom of a gas station, or in a hut somewhere in Africa, than in this hospital,” Corum said in an early August ruling. “Literally, this was the most dangerous place on the planet for her to have given birth.”
“The person [Azaylee] was to be, the person she deserved to be, is trapped inside a brain-damaged child,” Corum said. “I cannot think of anything more profound, total or complete than that loss.”
The astonishing damages award is the largest in Utah’s history, the Salt Lake Tribune first reported, citing lawyers for the family.
But the family must now attempt to collect on their award from the embattled hospital chain which is currently in bankruptcy as it owes billions to various creditors.
Zancanella’s lawyers hope they will be able to collect at least the punitive damages against Steward — or half of the total award.
Zancanella and McMicheal had been on a short getaway in Salt Lake City away from their Wyoming home when the wife went into labor on Oct. 12, 2019 and was forced to deliver her girl at the local hospital, the suit said.
But the nurses, who’d only finished their training the day Zancanella was admitted, pushed “excessive” amounts of the labor-inducing drug Pitocin for hours — despite alarm bells like the baby’s blood pressure rising and the fact the drug wasn’t working to dilate Zancanella, the suit alleged.
When the nurses finally told the on-call doctor about the baby’s alarming blood pressure and the mom’s fever, the doctor simply went back to sleep in a room mere footsteps from where the labor was underway, the suit claimed.
When Azaylee was delivered via C-section she had a “misshapen head,” a “swollen” face and bruising and bulging on the front of her scalp, the suit claimed.
The baby had to be airlifted to Primary Children’s Hospital’s intensive care unit in Salt Lake City for a slew of complications, including having been without sufficient oxygen during the labor, the suit alleged.
Azaylee now needs 24/7 care because of regular seizures.
She is mostly non-verbal and lacks the cognitive and executive functioning of others her age. Doctors think she’ll never be able to carry out normal activities like driving a car, attending college or working.
Azaylee’s seizures are so frequent that the family — including her younger sister — all sleep in a giant bed to be close in case one of the attacks happens while she’s asleep. And they take oxygen with them everywhere they go to help with the seizures.
The parents say they plan to get Azaylee a service dog to help with seizure detection.
The young girl receives physical and occupational therapy and can only attend kindergarten for a few hours every day.
Azaylee “had her life stolen. We all did. We had her taken from us,” Zancanella said during a three-day bench trial, according to Corum’s ruling.
“She is trapped. I know that my daughter is in there, but she can’t come out and I think of that every day.”
Steward denied the allegations and any liability in May 2024 court papers but later that year its lawyers asked to withdraw from the case on the grounds they were no longer getting paid and were having trouble getting into contact with the company. The judge approved their withdrawal but the company never appointed new lawyers.
The hospital was renamed Holy Cross Hospital-West Valley after it was acquired by CommonSpirit Health two years ago.
Steward, the nurses and the doctors involved didn’t return requests for comment from the Tribune.
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