Family Wants Answers After Man Leaves Hospital, Dies In Hit And Run
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (CBS4) - Lakewood Police are searching for a hit-and-run driver who killed a man Sunday evening on Wadsworth Boulevard between Florida Avenue and Arkansas Place.
57-year-old Kevin D'Amico had been hospitalized after suffering a seizure and a fall.
He left St. Anthony Hospital on Saturday evening. A few hours later he would be dead.
His mother, Patricia D'Amico visited him at the hospital earlier when he told her, "I just want to go home. I just want to go home." She responded to him, "I told him 'you have to stay here. You were injured and had a seizure.'"
When she called the hospital later to check on him, she says she was notified he was gone.
"She says 'He is not here. He left.' I said 'I have his clothes and ID.' I said 'I have everything. He has nothing,'" D'Amico said.
She called police with a missing person description of her son. She says he was located and put in a cab to his home.
The next thing she heard was he was found dead here along Wadsworth Blvd. near Arkansas Ave.
Kevin's family is fighting for any information from anyone who saw him wandering in his last hours.
While some cars did stop, the car that struck Kevin appears to have gotten away.
His family cannot get him back, but they hope to learn why his death could not be prevented.
Wendy Forbes a spokesperson for the hospital said it could not discuss specifics due to federal laws. It did issue the following statement:
"At Centura Health – St. Anthony Hospital, we believe that patients are in control of their health and their decisions about their health. We established a Patient Bill of Rights and Responsibilities derived from both Federal and State regulations which supports patients participating in all areas of their care plan, treatment, care decisions, and discharge. Unless the patient is determined to not have the capacity to think, reason, and understand for oneself, each patient is supported in these Rights and Responsibilities, including their decision to discontinue care. When a patient refuses any drug, test, procedure, or treatment, protocols are followed including informing a patient of the medical consequences of such a decision as well as getting signatures on required forms such as a Patient Leaving Against Medical Advise (AMA), where they accept the consequences of their decision."
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.
