Maya and Beata Kowalski.Photo:Jack Kowalski
Jack Kowalski
Maya Kowalski,the teen at the heart of a $220 million lawsuit against a Florida hospital, took the stand on Monday, breaking down in tears while recalling how a staff member wouldn’t let her talk to her mother when she was being held in state custody.
From left, Maya Kowalski, Jack Kowalski, Beata Kowalski and Kyle Kowalski.Netflix
Netflix
Maya’s father, Jack Kowalski, filed the $220 million lawsuit alleging that the hospital separated his wife, Beata, from their daughter, Maya, who says she was “held captive” when child protective services in Florida took her into state custody for three months in 2016 when she was 10.
Jack filed the lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of his children, Maya and Kyle, and the estate of his late wife, alleging medical malpractice, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Maya Kowalski.Gesi Schilling
Gesi Schilling
In 2016, Maya was checked into the Children’s Hospital for debilitating stomach pain. Hospital staff reported Beata, a registered nurse, to DCF after she repeatedly requested Maya be treated with ketamine, saying the drug had been effective for Maya in the past.
A Harrowing Ordeal
Hospital attorneys claimed Beata pushed for care they deemed “aggressive.”
Jack testified last week that he and other family members were told that they would be arrested if they took Maya out of the hospital,Fox 13reports.
During his opening statements on Sept. 21, Kowalski family attorney Greg Anderson argued that taking Maya away from Beata led to Beata’s suicide.
He alleged the hospital’s actions “caused [Beata], in the end, to lose completely and utterly her ability to control her maternal instinct, and the fact outweighed the survival instinct,” Fox 13 reports.
As a result, Anderson said, Maya and her brother Kyle were “denied” a “loving, caring, and amazing mother,” he added, as Maya shed tears seated behind him, per the outlet.
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Beata “was deteriorating,” because she wasn’t allowed near her daughter and because of the allegations of child abuse against her, Jack Kowalski, Maya’s father, told PEOPLE in June. Jack added that it “destroyed” the mother of two when a judged denied her a request to hug Maya.
“I’m sorry,” she wrote in an email discovered after her death, “but I no longer can take the pain being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse.”
The trial will determine whether the entire series of events could have been prevented and whether the hospital had a role in Beata’s suicide, Fox13 News reports.
The family is suing the hospital for $220 million. The Kowalski family demands $55 million be in compensatory damages, and $165 million be paid in punitive damages, according toWTSP.
Why the Hospital Was Concerned
In Maya’s case, it was used to alleviate her pain.
Doctors at the hospital were hesitant to give her such a high dose of the drug – 1,500 milligrams — especially since she was on 21 other medications, Howard Hunter, the lead attorney for the hospital, said in court in September, theTampa Bay Timesreported.
“They had a child being given levels of medication they had never heard of before, that the literature did not support,” Hunter said in court, theTampa Bay Timesreported.
Hunter told the court that the hospital “acted out of reasonable caution” while figuring out how to treat Maya, theTampa Bay Timesreported.
On Wednesday, Ethen Shapiro, another attorneys for the hospital, pointed out that Maya had undergone a ketamine coma treatment in Mexico that carried a 50 percent risk of death,Fox 13 Newsreports.
Shapiro replied, “I understand that, Mr. Kowalski, but respectfully there’s a risk and then there’s a risk that’s a coin flip in which your daughter could pass. Did you know it was 50%?”
Jack Kowalski responded, “They stated it was 50%, but they stated no one every died from that procedure,” Fox 13 reports.
source: people.com
