A new $1 million lawsuit accuses the Harney County Health District of negligence over a two-hour response time it faults for a woman's death.
The district, one of several in Oregon, operates Harney District Hospital as well as an ambulance service. It's the latter at issue in the suit filed over Shirley Byram's death late last year. The district could not immediately be reached for comment.
The suit claims Byram's daughter called 911 at around 1 a.m. on November 24, 2023 to request an ambulance, while providing explicit instructions to reach their home.
The ambulance did not arrive until around 3:19 a.m., the suit claims, and left for the hospital at about 3:42 a.m, arriving at about 4:17 a.m. There, after 10 minutes, Byram was pronounced dead.
The suit claims the delay occurred because the ambulance "did not follow the directions to Ms. Byram's home" provided by the daughter.
"Instead, EMS, using GPS navigation tools, first got lost and then attempted to travel on South Newton Road in Burns, OR, and the muddy condition of the dirt road disabled the EMS vehicle. A replacement EMS vehicle was not available to be immediately dispatched to Ms. Byram's home, and it was the replacement EMS vehicle that finally arrived at Ms. Byram's home at or near 3:19 AM."
The suit claims the delay "caused or contributed" to Byram's death, saying that a previous 911 call for similar symptoms three weeks earlier led to Byram stabliling at the hospital after "timely" care.
