Reasa Selph felt comfortable taking her 11-year-old son to the local Southlake Methodist Medical Center with flu-like symptoms on December 14, 2023. She personally knew the hospital’s CEO and trusted Methodist. Now, she is suing the system and alleging medical negligence that nearly killed her son.
After a positive flu test and some fluids via IV in her son’s arm, the family returned home following the December 14 visit. He began to feel better, but after about a week, he felt run down again with nausea, vomiting, fever, dizziness, headache, and body aches. On December 23, the sixth grader vomited in his room, and the family pediatrician advised them to return to the ER. After less than a two-hour stay and more fluids, Selph says they were told her son had an upper respiratory infection and should be fine, even though he could barely walk and had to be pushed into the ER in a wheelchair. The family went home again, but this time, Selph’s son didn’t improve.
On Christmas morning, Selph’s son hadn’t come down to open presents, so her older son, who was back from college, went up to get him. He came downstairs, and what Selph saw shocked her. His skin was yellow, and his eyes were sunken. Even though it was Christmas morning, she called their pediatrician at her home. Next, they made the trip from Southlake to Cook Children’s Pediatric Hospital in Fort Worth.
When he arrived, the intake team evaluated her son, and soon, he was surrounded by 10 caretakers, Selph says. “We didn’t know this at the time but later learned that he was pretty much dead,” Selph says. “We weren’t sure what was happening and were trying to figure out what was wrong.”
According to a medical negligence lawsuit the family filed in Tarrant County against the health system, the ER doc who saw Selph’s son on the 23rd, and the emergency physician group she works for, he arrived at Cook Children’s in septic shock with dangerously low blood pressure, elevated respiratory rate, and tachycardia. He was quickly transported to the ICU, where he was given medications usually reserved for seriously ill patients, including a Norepinephrine drip. He spent the next 34 days in the hospital recovering.
The lawsuit contends that Selph’s son was in early sepsis when he arrived at Southlake Methodist on December 23, which is typically treated with antibiotics. Selph’s suit alleges that the physician who treated her son that day provided below-standard care, including not rechecking his tachycardia levels or other vital signs. The lawsuit also claims the physician did not record nor mention the multiple abnormal or borderline lab results. “Of greater concern is that a diagnosis of sepsis does not appear to have been even entertained,” the lawsuit reads. “In view of [his] tachycardia and laboratory values, it certainly should have been a consideration or differential diagnosis.”
Selph remembers the harrowing moments following their arrival at Cook Children’s. She says that at one point, he vomited a pint of blood and was on a ventilator for breathing assistance for 12 hours. Selph says her son had Strep A in his blood, and that patients in his condition have an alarmingly high mortality rate. The situation became especially grim when his conditions warranted caretakers to ask Selph if she wanted to bring in a priest. “Not an option,” she replied.