Frederick -- Hospitals are supposed to be safe places to put patients, the doctor for a confused elderly woman who fell to her death in August 2003 testified Wednesday in Frederick County Circuit Court.Dr. Ernest Clevinger, the neurologist overseeing Oksana Kalynowsky's care at Frederick Memorial Hospital, said he'd never seen anything like the scene he encountered when he returned to the fourth-story hospital room to find the door-size window wide open after being notified of his patient's demise.
Ms. Kalynowsky's body lay on the rock-covered, first-floor roof of the hospital's main entrance.
Earlier that night, Dr. Clevinger had ordered nurses to treat Ms. Kalynowsky, 84, for dehydration and to keep watch for symptoms of delirium brought on by longtime Parkinson's disease.
With a diagnosis of delirium, nurses know she needs to be checked on and placed in a room closest to the nurses' station, Dr. Clevinger said.
Ms. Kalynowsky was put in the closest room, and nurses could see the window and part of her bed from their station, according to testimony last week from hospital employees.
"At 12:02 or 12:03 (a.m.) É I got a very troubling call," while working on the first floor in the emergency department, Dr. Clevinger said.
"I went straight upstairs and found out the window had been opened. I don't know how," he said. "I assumed that the fourth-floor windows would be locked."
His testimony came as the two-week medical malpractice trial against the hospital and Frederick Neurology, Dr. Clevinger's employer, draws to a close. Closing arguments before Judge Theresa M. Adams could come today.
The victim's daughters, Irene Kirilloff of Frederick and Nina Platt of Stevenson, are seeking $100,000 in damages, according to court documents. Their attorney, E. Dale Adkins, has told the jurors he will seek significantly more.
On Aug. 2, 2003, Ms. Kirilloff took her mother to the hospital because of intensified hallucinations and dementia brought on by Parkinson's disease; she died that night.
The plaintiffs contend the defendants should have been zealous in supervising Ms. Kalynowsky. Her Parkinson's symptoms had been growing worse and more frequent since she was diagnosed with the degenerative, incurable disease in the early 1990s.
During testimony Monday, an officer with the Frederick Police Department said that police found a cigarette butt on the window ledge of Ms. Kalynowsky's room while they investigated her death.
On Wednesday, Dr. Clevinger repeated testimony he'd given before trial that a nurse on duty that night said windows were routinely opened by smokers.
"I had no idea that was going on; it'd never been brought to my attention," Dr. Clevinger said.
Days after Ms. Kalynowsky's death, the hospital began requiring that patient windows be locked.
Dr. Clevinger said it never occurred to him that the hospital windows could open. Windows were securely sealed at six other hospitals where he had previously worked.
"I'd never worked in a hospital where the windows were not locked," he said. "I'd never heard of such a situation."
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