$4.8 million settlement; Patient dies from complications of misplaced feeding tube

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Action: Settlement

Date: April 25, 2025

Date of incident: May 14, 2019

Nature of claim: Medical malpractice

Injuries alleged: Wrongful death and survival

Amount: $4.8 million

Name of case: Zachary H. Edwards, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Larry Eugene Edwards, vs. Spartanburg Regional Health Services District Inc., Neil H. Parnes, M.D., and Upstate Carolina Radiology, P.A.

Case number: 21-CP-42-02638

Court: Spartanburg County Common Pleas Court

Most helpful experts: Paul E. Collier, M.D., general and vascular surgery, Pittsburgh; Bruce A. Rodan, M.D., radiologist, Tallahassee, Florida; Ian H. Newmark, M.D., pulmonologist, Syosset, New York

Attorneys: John S. Simmons and Rachel G. Peavy, of Simmons Law Firm, Columbia, and John B. White Jr., Marghretta H. Shisko and Griffin L. Lynch, of John B. White Jr., PA, Spartanburg (for the plaintiff); Molly H. Craig, of Hood Law Firm, Charleston, for Upstate Carolina Radiology (previously represented by Mark C. Wilby and P. Kyle Perry of Fulcher Hagler, Augusta Georgia), D. Gary Lovell Jr., of Copeland, Stair, Valz & Lovell, Charleston, SC for Neil H. Parnes, M.D. (previously represented by Mark C. Wilby and P. Kyle Perry of Fulcher Hagler, Augusta); and Perry D. Boulier, of Boulier, Thompson & Barnes, Spartanburg, for Spartanburg Regional Health Svcs. District Inc.

Insurance carriers: The Doctors Co. and Endurance Specialty Insurance Group

Post-operative placement of a Dobhoff feeding tube was ordered for the decedent, a 65-year-old man. Before the feeding tube started, an X-ray was ordered to confirm proper placement of the feeding tube. Defendant Parnes, a radiologist, reported that a previously placed orogastric tube was in place, but he failed to note the improper placement of the

Dobhoff tube in decedent’s lung.

After feeding started into the decedent’s lung, he developed pneumonia and sepsis, requiring several bronchoscopies and a lobectomy, removing a portion of his lung. The patient died about three weeks after the tube feeding.

Defendant Upstate Carolina Radiology, Parnes’s practice group (represented by prior counsel at Fulcher Hagler firm), was sanctioned for withholding personnel documents throughout discovery.

Defendant Spartanburg Regional Health Services District settled for $800,000 in April, and the other defendants settled for a combined $4 million in June.