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Family of man who died after climbing from ambulance awarded $7M

Patrick Stein’s family sued the ambulance service and hospital, alleging that the paramedics who transported him were not informed he was a psychiatric patient

By EMS1 Staff

CHICAGO — The family of a man who died after climbing from a moving ambulance was awarded millions by a jury.

The Associated Press reported that Patrick Stein’s family was awarded $7 million after suing the ambulance service and St. James Olympia Fields Hospital’s operators in 2015.

The family’s lawsuit alleged that the paramedics who were transporting Stein in 2014 were not informed that he was a psychiatric patient.

A Cook County jury found both defendants liable in the incident, according the family’s lawyer, Michael Bonamarte.

Stein was hospitalized after he was found standing outside of his daughter’s home with a butcher knife, and was being transported to a Veterans Affairs hospital when he unbuckled his gurney’s straps and climbed from the moving ambulance.