Cindy Teigland, the wife of late local meteorologist Brian Teigland, has filed a malpractice suit alleging Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare-Germantown and several individual doctors negligently caused the 2008 death of her husband.

According to court documents filed today in Shelby County Circuit Court, the attorneys for Cindy Teigland and the Teigland estate are Mark Geller and Russell D. Marlin, both with Nahon Saharovich & Trotz PLC.

Geller and Marlin have filed a malpractice suit claiming the hospital and Drs. Mark Page Miller, Dr. Amal Y. Rustom and Dr. Gilbert E. Herren “(failed) to properly diagnose and treat Mr. Teigland’s condition on July 24, 2008.”

Teigland went to Methodist Germantown July 8 presenting with abdominal pain, read court documents filed by the plaintiffs. The hospital performed a CT scan and Teigland was diagnosed with, among other things, a hepatic artery aneurysm.

On July 12, the hospital performed another CT scan, at which time staff wrote “(Teigland) appears to have a partially thrombosed aneurysm of the hepatic artery.”

He was discharged from the hospital July 16. On July 24, he returned complaining of radiating abdominal pain. The hospital performed tests and Teigland was discharged that day, allegedly told to drink plenty of fluids and “decrease his usage of pain medication.” A colonoscopy was scheduled for seven weeks later.

The next morning, Cindy Teigland claims she called the hospital and told Methodist employees Brian Teigland was groaning, sweaty, pale and having difficulty breathing. An ambulance took Brian Teigland to Methodist Germantown, where hospital staff were unable to save him from what turned out to be a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm. Teigland died early in the morning July 25, 2008.

Attorneys for Cindy Teigland argue in the filing that the defendants “failed to properly monitor Mr. Teigland’s condition on July 24, 2008, when he had been previously diagnosed with an untreated aneurysm on or about July 8, July 12, and July 14, 2008, and came in with signs and symptoms of a person suffering from a perforating aneurysm. Instead, Defendants sent him home.”

The wrongful death suit asks for compensatory damages, economic losses (a determined amount for Teigland’s lost income), medical and funeral expenses, loss of consortium damages for Cindy Teigland, and “all other further relief to which (s)he is entitled.”

Geller and Marlin have specifically asked for the case to be heard before a jury, who will determine what amounts, if any, in damages the Teigland estate would be entitled to.

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