Tammy Cleveland could only look on helplessly as her husband Michael, with eyes open, kicked his legs, struggled with a tube in his throat, and reached for her.
Despite all his movements and breathing, hospital staff insisted Tammy was seeing “life expelling out of his body."
They were wrong.
"A part of me was thinking, 'he should know what he's doing better than me,'" she told The Democrat-Gazzette."But he kept showing more and more signs, so we just kept trying to get help."
Michael had suffered a heart attack while grocery shopping and a doctor quickly pronounced him dead.
A coroner came for Cleveland’s body twice but left each time saying to call back when Michael was dead.
Nearly two hours after her husband was declared lifeless, Tammy convinced a doctor to take another look.
"My God, he has a pulse," one shouted.
Michael was rushed to another hospital where “Dr. William Morris concluded that Cleveland's life was threatened not by the heart attack but by respiratory struggles owing to a collapsed lung. While getting CPR immediately after the heart attack, Cleveland had suffered broken ribs, and one apparently punctured his lung.”
He died several hours later.
The suit alleges Michael would have lived if treated correctly. The family wants damages from actions their attorneys say, "transcend the bounds of human decency and constitute shocking and outrageous conduct."