Crime & Safety

Father Sues Over 24-Year-Old Joliet Daughter's Death

The father of a woman who died in a Wilmington nursing home is suing the place, along with three doctors and a nurse.

The father of a 24-year-old woman who was treated for chest pains at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center and died four days later at a Wilmington nursing home has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

Nebraska resident Fred Saltzman filed the suit in Will County court Friday.

Saltzman's daughter, Tenessa Marie Vincent, died in Wilmington's Embassy Care Center in November 2010.

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An obituary on Legacy.com said Vincent was a Joliet resident.

According to the lawsuit, Vincent was admitted to the hospital with chest pains. She was discharged two days later and sent to Embassy Care Center.

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Between her discharge and death, Vincent was given at least 10 different medications, including a potent painkiller on a transdermal patch, the lawsuit said.

An autopsy revealed no anatomical cause of death, the lawsuit said, and Vincent's "death was assigned to 'combined drug intoxication.'"

In addition to Embassy Care Center, the lawsuit names three doctors—James D. Wright, Yatin M. Shah and Cosme Lozano—and a nurse, Victoria Mancke.

Saltzman is being represented by Chicago attorney John Cushing and four lawyers from the Dallas firm Heygood, Orr & Pearson.

According to another, different Legacy.com obituary, Vincent was born in Kansas and also lived in Carlsbad, N.M. She was a widow and had a son, the obituary said.


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