Hospital investigates death of patient under restraint
Official says guards followed procedures for man with seizure
4/26/01

No lawsuit filed yet, investigations and further medical tests being done

By Margarita Bauza / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- St. John Hospital's president said Monday that the hospital's security officers followed proper procedures in subduing a patient having a seizure in the emergency room.

Nevertheless, the hospital is investigating the Highland Park man's death, President Tony Jones said.

While citing patient confidentiality laws, Jones said medical personnel were overseeing the guards' actions Sunday when Mason Lewis, 52, died. Lewis was the fourth person to die in the last year during a struggle with security guards.

"We have determined that medical personnel were present at all times during Mr. Lewis' care," Jones said. "Every situation involving the death of a patient undergoes a thorough review. ..."

St. John spokesman Greg Jakub added that the hospital is working with the Wayne County Medical Examiner to determine why Lewis died. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sawait Kanluen said the cause of death will not be determined until various toxicology tests can be completed.

"We need to complete microscopic examination of tissue, toxicology and also a histology," he said. "We don't release information piecemeal."

Detroit police said detectives are not investigating the case at this time.

Meanwhile, Pearl Lewis, the dead man's widow, declined an interview Monday, saying that her attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, "advised us not to talk."

Fieger represents the families in the other three deaths in struggles with security guards in Metro Detroit since last June.

The Rev. Horace Sheffield, who has been at the forefront of protests against the three businesses where the previous three deaths occurred, Monday resigned from the board of St. John Hospital's Northeast Branch, but then changed his mind. "My understanding (of what happened) is really incomplete," Sheffield said.

Return to the Fieger Current Case page