Bu Aimee Green
The Oregonian
PORTLAND, Ore. — A woman who says she sliced open her lower leg while stepping into the back of an ambulance has filed a $425,700 lawsuit against American Medical Response.
On April 5, 2013, Lori Defehr was feeling lightheaded and having trouble walking when she summoned an ambulance to her home, said her Portland attorney, Geoffrey Silverman, who filed the suit on Defehr’s behalf last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
To Defehr’s surprise, the paramedics who responded told her she’d have to get into the ambulance on her own, Silverman said Thursday.
“She felt like they weren’t taking her condition seriously,” Silverman said. “The guy basically said, ‘Get up in there.’”
A representative from American Medical Response declined comment, citing the pending litigation.
According to her suit, Defehr tried to step up into the ambulance three times -- as the paramedics “stood by watching her” -- but she slipped on the metal-grate-style bumper.
“Like a potato peeler, the bumper sliced the skin from down near her ankle up her shin about 18 inches,” the suit states. “Her thumb was dislocated and her forearm injured, too.”
At that point, Defehr was in the street, and one of the paramedics told Defehr to crawl to the curb, her attorney said. The paramedics then put her on a stretcher, moved her into the ambulance and drove her to the hospital, the attorney said.
The suit states that Defehr required 28 stitches and months of physical therapy. Defehr feels shooting pain in her leg, and her skin “will always be very thin at the sight of the injury and prone to tearing and bleeding,” according to her suit.
The suit claims that Defehr was unable to work after the injury, and she lost her $40,000-a-year job.
The suit seeks $3,000 in past medical bills that weren’t covered by insurance, $10,000 for future medical bills and $162,700 in past and future lost wages or earning capacity. Defehr also is seeking $250,000 in pain and suffering.
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©2015 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.)