The new book ‘Ripped Apart’ addresses a local case of medical malpractice.
In May of 2011, Pikesville native Gary B. Stern, 47, was rushed to a Baltimore area emergency room for severe pain. His blood pressure was so high that emergency medical technicians thought he was having a heart attack. The attending physicians who first examined him at the hospital misdiagnosed his symptoms as complications from Crohn’s disease.
The doctors’ mistakes led to an agonizing five-year medical nightmare as Gary and his wife, Carol Stern, sought to reverse the damage. But it was too late.
Now, a decade later, in the hopes of helping others facing medical malpractice, Carol is telling their story in “Ripped Apart: Living Misdiagnosed” (Skyhorse).
“This is Carol’s book,” says David Black, the New York-based, award-winning author of “Ripped Apart.” “All the medical and legal background underscore the story of a love that defied death.”
In the first days of Gary’s illness, doctors treated him as a Crohn’s patient, despite inconclusive test results and his own insistence that his symptoms were not related to that type of inflammatory bowel disease. The doctors performed treatments that exacerbated his true condition — an ulcer.
They cut into his intestines and prescribed steroids that caused the ulcer to perforate. Eventually, Gary, a bail bondsman, was forced to live with his internal organs outside of his body, with only 17 inches of his small intestines left. He endured a dozen major surgeries and more than 100 procedures before passing away in March of 2016.
Carol says the first doctor’s words, “You need to stop being a self-paid patient,” convinced her that Gary received incomplete and botched treatments because he was uninsured. Otherwise, she says, the medical staff would have conducted further tests and performed an endoscopy that would have uncovered Gary’s ulcer and ultimately saved his life.
“Gary was tortured by ‘friendly fire,’ the doctors in the hospital, for five years,” says his brother, David Stern. “It’s like going to war, and Gary was shot in the back by his own sergeant.”
Says Carol: “The doctors were so busy trying to find ways to cut costs and not to get sued that they covered up issues. Instead of saying, ‘Hey, we made a mistake, we can fix it and let’s move on,’ they just kept going and made it worse and worse and worse. Until finally, I had enough of it and after the third surgery and seeing what I saw, I decided it’s time to take over.”
Carol began researching her husband’s condition, trying to determine the best medical centers to seek care.
“Carol did so much research,” says Black. “She really knew more about the medical issues involved than most doctors.”
She also worked to determine the best treatments to address Gary’s excruciating pain. Gary required a wound vacuum assisted closure to protect the skin around the fistulas, or abnormal holes, in his intestines. However, the donut sponge used to direct the force of the VAC was too high, causing intestinal complications and discomfort.
“I’m not going to sit there and let that happen if I can figure out a way to fix it, which I did,” says Carol.
She devised a new apparatus for a shorter donut to protect the fistulas without negatively affecting the rest of the skin. Gary’s skin began healing without additional skin grafts, and he became more comfortable.
“She took over. She worked on my brother in the hospital for three-and-a-half years,” says David Stern. “Carol would tell the doctors to leave the room, and she would take care of Gary 24/7.”
In 2015, Carol and Gary sued two hospitals and several doctors, winning one of the largest individual medical malpractice awards in the U.S. history.
“In a number of legal proceedings, when Carol would tell her story, the judges wept — even the attorneys for the other side,” says Black. “It’s an extraordinary story. It’s an extraordinary woman.”
Jokingly, David Stern calls her, “The Erin Brockovich of the 21st century.”
But Carol shrugs off all praise and says, “I’m just a wife. When a doctor goes into your room, and they’re looking at the computer — ‘So how are you doing today? I see your white count’s a little elevated. Oh, your temperature’s down, that’s good. Well, we’re going to change this, I’ll see you later’ — and they walk out. Do you realize there’s a human being in the bed that you didn’t even look at? No, you need to stay out of my husband’s room. If a doctor refers to my husband as Gary — not ‘a patient’ but someone that really needs to be respected — they can stay.
“I don’t care what kind of doctor you are. You’re not the one that’s important in that room,” she says. “And that’s what I need to get out for everybody. I can’t do that for my Gary, but I want to help all the other ones out there, to let them know don’t have to put up with this. It can stop.”
Carol also struggled to get her husband medical coverage and disability payments. She worked tirelessly to reach government agencies and politicians, trying to get coverage for Gary’s medical necessities before it was too late.
After all she went through, Carol says she wants to spare others the same experiences. She is launching a new Owings Mills-based nonprofit, Angel’s Advocate. The objective of Angel’s Advocate is to empower caregivers who are trying to advocate for a loved one, helping them navigate the health care system and reach the right contacts for assistance.
With “Ripped Apart,” she says she is hoping to encourage others to speak up for themselves and do the research necessary to make the most informed decisions about their medical care.”
“This book needs to be about him, not me,” Carol says. “It needs to be about the Garys out there, not the Carols. With the right knowledge, the Carols can take care of them.”
For information about “Ripped Apart,” click here.
Hanni R. Wemer is a local freelance writer.
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