Death in Frankford ER took 11 minutes

The Frankford man who died while waiting to see a doctor in a Philadelphia emergency room, and whose watch was then stolen, appeared to have expired within 11 minutes of signing in, a police official said yesterday.

Capt. John McGinnis of Northeast Detectives said a security videotape from the Aria Health-Frankford Campus hospital clearly showed Joaquin Rivera, 63, going into distress at 10:56 p.m. Rivera struggles to breathe, brings his hand to his chest, then falls still in his seat.

Thirty-nine minutes later, one of three people in the waiting room stole Rivera's watch, McGinnis said.

It was only at 11:45 p.m., nearly 50 minutes after Rivera stopped moving, that hospital personnel noticed he appeared to be dead, a witness in the waiting room told police.

"He came in with symptoms of pains down his left arm, and when he appears to be dying, he has his hands over his chest, making me think he's having pains in his chest," McGinnis said. "It's assumptions on my part, but if you've watched people die, you can tell. In the tape, he doesn't move again."

Angered and upset by the turn of events, Wilfredo Rojas, a friend of the Rivera family's, said yesterday that "somebody dropped the ball" at the hospital. He said the Rivera family believed that personnel had changed shifts while Rivera awaited medical attention and that the incoming shift had not known of his condition.

McGinnis confirmed an 11 p.m. shift change but said it was not known whether it had anything to do with Rivera's death.

The case is under investigation by the state Department of Health, the hospital, and the Philadelphia Police Department.

The hospital declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality and the investigation. On Tuesday the hospital expressed "condolences to the patient's family. Aria officials are conducting an intensive internal investigation into this event," it said.

In November 2007 a woman who complained of chest pains and who had received an abnormal EKG reading also died in the emergency room's waiting area, according to a lawyer for her estate.

Jennifer Lynn Castro, 33, a mother of three, died 10 to 15 minutes after the EKG, having received no medication, said the lawyer, Phillip Gilligan, who is handling a lawsuit filed by Castro's estate.

"She was not dealt with in an efficient, efficacious way," Gilligan said. "She got the EKG and was told to sit down, and she died."

Castro had been suffering from chest pains for about a week, according to the lawsuit. After going back to the waiting room, she lost consciousness and slumped over in her seat. An autopsy revealed she had a 100 percent blockage of her left anterior descending artery, a major blood vessel, according to the complaint filed in May in Common Pleas Court.

The hospital did not respond to a request for comment on Castro's case.

In the theft of Rivera's watch, Richard Alten, 44, was arrested and charged with theft, receiving stolen property, and conspiracy. Police said they were still looking for a man and a woman. They described all three as homeless drug addicts.

In interviews yesterday, Rivera's family and friends talked about his last days.

Rivera, who friends said had been close to retirement, worked as a bilingual counseling assistant at Olney High School and was a popular guitarist in the city's Puerto Rican community. Friends described him as a hardworking role model.

Rivera had exercised regularly by walking an hour a day and had lost weight over the last years, friends said. He had high blood pressure and was taking medication for it but had no history of heart problems, his wife, Maria, 61, said.

But he had pain in his left arm last week and sought medical attention, Maria Rivera said.

He asked a doctor to administer an electrocardiogram to monitor his heart, said Roger Zepernick, Rivera's friend and the assistant to the pastor at Christ Church and St. Ambrose in North Philadelphia.

"The doctor said he didn't need it," Zepernick said. Rivera then returned home.

On Saturday, the day he died, Rivera went to Zepernick's church to help put up Christmas decorations, Maria Rivera said.

He again complained about pain on his left side, including his torso and neck, Zepernick said.

The president of the church offered to drive Rivera to the hospital, but he refused, Zepernick added.

"He looked tired," he said.

Rivera's son Joaquin Jr. said yesterday that he last saw his father around 9 p.m. Saturday. The elder Rivera was in bed, complaining of pain from his left shoulder through the left side of his chest and abdomen.

"I don't feel too good," the son recalled his father saying. But his father was hoping to sleep it off. "He had no interest in going anywhere," Joaquin Rivera Jr. said.

The son then went out for the evening and later learned that his father had died.

"Right now, we have to bury him," Maria Rivera said, adding that her husband would be buried with his guitar and signature white hat.

She said she could not bear to watch the news and had only briefly watched the surveillance video. At the mention of that, she teared up. "There's nobody there," she said of the waiting room. "It was empty."

She said she still had not heard from the hospital.

In describing the death of his friend Rojas, a past president of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, said yesterday that local hospitals in low-income and working-class communities "need to have trained individuals in the ERs who can actually identify someone who is in critical need of being seen."

Medical personnel working in North Philadelphia say Aria is among several city hospitals that have been increasingly busy since Northeastern Hospital closed in the middle of the year.