Dingle
Prison Rapemaster
Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 10183 |
Michael Jackson's flu killed my granmma !
quote:
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0...5,00.html?tnews
Michael Jackson may be over the flu after a brief hospital stay last week, but that's not keeping him from making one family sick.
Family members of a woman who had suffered a major heart attack say she died after she was moved from her hospital room at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, California, in order to accommodate the King of Pop, who was suffering from a "flu-like" illness.
Jackson's spokeswoman issued a statement calling the linking of Jackson's name to the woman's death "outrageous."
After Jackson turned up at the hospital, Manuela Gomez Ruiz, 74, was moved from the primary trauma room where she was being treated to a smaller room and was switched from a machine ventilator to a manual hand pump to assist her breathing.
Jackson, meanwhile, commandeered the larger room to be treated for symptoms including abdominal pain, a low body temperature and teary eyes.
Ruiz's daughter-in-law, Anna Ruiz, was in the emergency room when Jackson arrived.
"He walked in," she told ABC News. "When I saw him, he was walking unassisted."
Maria Elena Ortiz, Ruiz's daughter, was also by her mother's side when Jackson made his entrance and objected to her being moved.
"Why does she have to be moved if he's coming in for a stomach flu?" Ortiz said, per ABC News. "I said, 'My mother just had a heart attack and I think it's more critical than a stomach flu.' They didn't say anything."
Per initial emergency room reports, Jackson was legitimately ill, but he was cleared to go home any time following his initial examination.
Ruiz, on the other hand, suffered two more heart attacks over the course of the day and eventually expired. While it's unclear whether moving her contributed to her death, the family says that the turmoil caused by Jackson's arrival distracted the staff and took away from their last moments with their mother and grandmother.
After Ruiz was moved into the smaller room, her relatives said equipment was crowded into the space, meaning that only two family members could be at her bedside at a time.
However, due to the hospital's high-profile patient, the staff restricted movement through the hallways, meaning that the two family members couldn't leave Ruiz to let other relations spend time with her.
"This was the last time we might be able to talk with our grandma," Marcos Meraz, one of Ruiz's grandsons, told ABC News. "They took that from us."
The family has retained an attorney to sue the hospital and Jackson.
Jackson's spokeswoman, Raymone Bain, accused ABC of publicizing the story in order to hurt Jackson's chances at a fair trial.
"Michael Jackson sends his condolences to the family of the deceased," Bain stated. "However, it is outrageous that Michael Jackson's name would be invoked into a situation of which he had no authority or control. It appears that ABC is deliberate in its attempt to circumvent Michael Jackson from receiving a fair trial."
Meanwhile, despite the family's allegations that Jackson's celebrity treatment took away from Ruiz's care, the hospital maintains that the woman was in good hands.
"We are confident...that our patients have and continue to receive high-quality compassionate and timely care," a hospital rep said in a statement.
After Jackson checked into the hospital, jury selection in his child-molestation trial was postponed a week to give the singer time to recover from his illness. Despite the delay, 12 of the Gloved One's peers were sworn in on Wednesday, weeks earlier than expected.
On Thursday, eight alternate jurors were chosen to back up the main jury should any of them be unable to serve their duty.
The jury is composed primarily of whites and Hispanics; the alternates include one black man.
Judge Rodney Melville ruled Friday that jurors will hear allegations from Jackson's defense that the accuser's mother previously accused security guards of improper touching in a lawsuit against JC Penney and Tower Records.
The family settled with the department stores for $150,000 after claiming they were beaten by security guards and that the mother was groped after Jackson's accuser left the store with clothing he had not paid for.
Melville said testimony about the case would be permitted as it pertained to the mother's credibility, but that the defense would not be permitted to refer to the boy as a shoplifter.
ABC News reported Friday that a "mystery witness" will be deposed by both the prosecution and defense this weekend. The witness is reportedly a paralegal who worked for the attorney representing the accuser's mother in the JC Penny case; the witness is expected to tell lawyers that the accuser's mom lied under oath and fabricated the allegations against security guards, ABC says.
Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. has also accused the accuser's mother of perjury, alleging that she testified in the JC Penney case that her husband had never beaten her, but in her divorce proceedings, which followed shortly thereafter, she claimed that he had abused the family for years.
Mesereau also alleged that the mother asked her son to hit celebrities up for cash, then spent the money on cosmetic surgery for herself.
However, Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen argued that the money issue was largely irrelevant.
"The question is whether a man who admits to sleeping with children was sleeping with this child, and what he did with this child. That's what this case is about," Zonen said.
The prosecution also said Friday that they planned to screen the documentary Living with Michael Jackson for the jury, in which Jackson admits to sharing his bed with children and is shown holding hands with his accuser.
Barring any further unexpected delays, opening statements in Jackson's trial are scheduled to begin Monday.
I hope both the hospital and MJ get sued into the ground. I can't think of anything that pisses me off more than pompous stars who think the peons are there to roll over to make their pampered lives even more cushy.
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03-01-2005 02:48 AM
