SAN DIEGO — Pamela Gray required emergency surgery after she shattered her ankle in a fall inside her UTC home. And while doctors predicted a rough road to recovery, her family never thought surviving the surgery was ever in question.
However, as the surgical staff prepared Pamela Gray for anesthesia at Scripps Memorial Hospital in November 2023, an operating room staffer unknowingly flicked a round cap from a medical vial into the air and down Gray's throat.
Within two weeks, Gray was dead.
In a new lawsuit, Gray's family looks to hold the hospital accountable and hopes to prevent future deadly medical mishaps such as the one that resulted in their mother's death from happening again.
"She's so missed," said Gray's daughter, Erica. "We're carrying on her traditions and all of her love. All we can do is live, keep her spirit going, and try to make her proud."
November 4, 2023 - Ankle Surgery
Pamela Gray, a 76-year-old mother of two and grandmother of three, was rushed to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla for emergency surgery for a shattered ankle on November 4, 2023, after falling at her University City home.
By the time Erica Cole, Gray's daughter, arrived at the hospital, Gray was heavily sedated and placed on a ventilator. Cole and her brother Tyson were unsure why their mom was in such medical distress for a shattered ankle.
"My brother and I were just like, 'What happened?'" Cole told CBS 8. "From there, she was on the ventilator for three days. When they woke her up, she didn't know what had happened, and they had many things to address to get her blood pressure up and all the different levels."
Despite her disorientation and discomfort, Pamela Gray had one constant complaint: She couldn't breathe and was unable to swallow freely.
"I feel horrible," said Gray's daughter, Erica. "I thought it was from her having a ventilator in her throat. I remember asking to get her another breathing treatment, but they wouldn't do it."
Six weeks of discomfort
Complaints of trouble breathing aside, Cole also heard another troubling sign from her mom in the weeks following her surgery: a seal-bark-like cough.
In addition to difficulties breathing and her cough, Gray was weak and showed signs of failing health, something unusual for the 76-year-old.
Cole also said during that time, her mom repeatedly failed the hospital's swallowing test.
"She couldn't pass," said Cole. "She wasn't getting the nutrition she needed. One of the doctors told us If we can't pass this test, we're going to have to look into a (feeling tube) because our mom needed nutrition."
Gray was eventually placed in a skilled nursing facility. The change of environment did little to improve her health. Despite that, Gray did her best to act strong.
"She complained about the meals there, and we knew that a little bit of her was returning," said Gray's daughter Erica. "Then, on December 5, it was my brother's turn, and he had lunch with her, and she called me and said, they're going to do my hair here, and could you bring me my makeup?"
Things soon took a turn for the worse.
The Trip Back to the ICU
On that day, December 5, 2023, just over a month after her fall, paramedics rushed Gray back to Scripps Memorial due to a severe drop in blood pressure.
Back at the ICU, Cole said the doctor expressed concern over her mom's airways. The doctor told Cole that he was going to place a camera down her throat to check for possible obstructions.
As Cole and her brother Tyson waited, they heard an announcement they will never forget.
"We're sitting there, and we hear over the intercom, 'Code Blue' and her room number, and we just died because we knew what that meant," said Cole,
Erica and her brother went back into the room to see doctors resuscitating their mom. Minutes later, they managed to get a pulse. That's when they say a doctor asked them to come outside to talk.
"He said he found a foreign body in her airway. And I said, 'What's a foreign body?' He had this little jar with a blue cap inside. And I said, 'What is that?' And he said, 'It's a medicine cap.' And I said, 'In her airway?' And he said, 'Yes,'" said Cole.
Cole said the doctor said the dime-sized cap was stuck in Pamela's airway, and he had to remove her ventilator to dislodge the cap from her throat.
The cap wasn't all that doctors found.
They discovered the cap had caused Gray's lung to become infected. The infection then led to sepsis, kidney failure, and a host of other life-threatening health issues.
The following day, Erica and her brother Tyson met the doctor again to try and get an explanation for how a cap wound up in their mom's throat.
"He said, 'I've been reviewing your mom's chart, and I see that she was admitted on November 4, and I recognize that cap; it's to a medication she was given in our trauma center,'" said Erica. "We were just staring at him like, so you're saying that this has been in her body since November 4, and all those times that she asked for breathing treatments and complained about breathing, this thing has been living in her airway?"
During the next week, Gray's condition deteriorated.
On December 13, with her family and friends with her, Gray died.
"She was surrounded by love, and I hope she felt that," said Cole of the day.
According to the autopsy report obtained by CBS 8, the Medical Examiner ruled Gray's death "accidental," with a cause of death listed as "complications of a foreign body aspiration, including pneumonia with sepsis."
The Lawsuit
On October 30, nearly a year after the day their mom fell, Tyson Gray and his sister Erica sued Scripps Memorial for the wrongful death of their mother.
"I just don't want anyone else to go through this," said Cole. "So I'm hoping that, if nothing else, policy changes. Something has to change because this happened, and a very important person is no longer here."
Attorney Amy Martel represents the family and specializes in medical malpractice cases.
Martel told CBS 8 that nurses failed to account for all items used during hospital procedures.
"When surgery finishes, a needle count, or a sponge count, just be conducted to ensure that everything used in that room is accounted for. Nothing like that was done here," said Martel. "Had something like that been done, people would have known that they were missing a cap from one of the medication vials."
Added Martel, "Nothing we do could bring Pamela back. I wish we could, but in our system, the best we can do is seek financial compensation, accountability, and answers. Unfortunately, in this case, Scripps never gave this family an answer, and that's why we're here. We want to know what happened and make sure that it doesn't happen to another family ever again."
For Erica Cole, living without her mom is unimaginable.
"It robbed us of our matriarch, like now I'm the matriarch, and they're hard shoes to fill," said Erica.
A spokesperson for Scripps declined to comment for this article, citing pending litigation.