Font ResizeBOSTON -- The Boston Business Journal reported on June 28 that a Harvard family may receive a multi-million-dollar payment from an Acton doctor following the 2006 heart attack death of Robby Lee Ward, 59.
After a week-long trial, a Middlesex County Superior Court jury awarded Ward's widow, Kaye, administrator of her husband's estate, $3.74 million dollars. The award could reportedly grow to $5.8 million dollars with interest accrued since the suit was filed in 2007.
The medical malpractice judgment pivoted on the care provided to Ward by Peter Demartino. The Acton Medical Associates doctor was Ward's primary-care physician.
Ward was an insurance salesman who died four months after complaining of chest pains at work. Ward was transported by EMTs to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. Aboard the ambulance, paramedics administered aspirin to Ward as a blood thinner.
Plaintiff's counsel argued that although the hospital didn't find Ward had suffered a heart attack, the hospital didn't rule out other possible coronary problems.
Following release from the hospital, Ward visited Demartino who allegedly advised Ward to stop taking aspirin and allegeldy failed to urge Ward seek a follow-up evaluation by a cardiologist.
Andrew Satin of Lubin & Meyer also claimed that Demartino never ordered Ward's medical records from Mount Auburn Hospital.
Ward died in June 2006. An autopsy determined Ward suffered from prior heart damage and coronary
