Winkler Spoke With Ritter Before He Died

GLENDALE, Calif. — Actor Henry Winkler took the witness stand Wednesday in a lawsuit over the death of actor John Ritter, telling jurors he had a conversation with his friend just hours before he died.

Winkler, who played The Fonz on "Happy Days," also gave the jury a testimonial to the comedic brilliance of Ritter, who was best known for the classic sitcom "Three's Company."

"He kept everyone laughing. He was a professional," Winkler said.

Ritter, at the time starring in the TV show "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter," died Sept. 11, 2003, after suffering a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection. He was 54.

Winkler testified that on the day of Ritter's death he was doing a guest appearance on "8 Simple Rules" and he did not suspect anything seriously wrong with his friend.

At one point, he said, they were recalling old times before they were due to perform an episode in which Winkler was to play Ritter's new boss.

"We were reminiscing," Winkler said. "He was sweating (and said) 'I really need to get some water.' I said 'I really need to memorize my lines.' And he went one way and I went the other. And that was the last time I saw him."

The lawsuit says Ritter was treated for a heart attack instead of the aortic dissection and seeks $67 million from a radiologist who earlier gave Ritter a body scan and the cardiologist who treated him that day. The trial follows settlements with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and other medical personnel for about $14 million.

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Defense attorneys have told the jury that neither doctor was responsible for Ritter's death and that the body scan two years earlier showed his aorta was of normal size and there was no sign it would dissect.

Winkler said that a while after he saw Ritter the members of the cast were told to go home but weren't told what was wrong. He said he knew it was the fifth birthday of one of Ritter's children and thought perhaps he had decided to quit early to celebrate.

"At 9 at night I was called and told he was in the hospital and at 11 or 11:30 I was called to say, 'We have lost John,'" Winkler testified.

He told jurors Ritter had been thrilled that "lightning had struck again" and he had a new hit show.

"He loved everyone in the cast, and they loved him," he said.

Much of Winkler's testimony dealt with Ritter's devotion to his wife, Amy Yasbeck, and his four children.

Asked what he thought the children would miss most about their father, Winkler replied: "His passion for life. His excitement for being on the Earth."

"Any conversation we had wrapped around his children, the pride and the love," Winkler said.

Ritter and Yasbeck "were an incredible team. ... They were like two sides of a whole," Winkler said.

Yasbeck wiped her eyes several times during Winkler's testimony.

Outside court, Winkler talked to reporters but would not comment on whether he believed the doctors were to blame.

A renowned expert on thoracic aortic disease said in testimony after Winkler's that the cardiologist, Dr. Joseph Lee, caused Ritter's death by providing substandard care.

Dr. John Elefteriades, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, said he had never before given such harsh testimony against a cardiologist.

"It's very difficult for me, and I'm here with a very heavy heart," he said. "But for one tragic decision, Mr. Ritter would have been alive. I couldn't find a way to justify the events."

The tragic decision, he said, was Lee's judgment that Ritter was having a heart attack and needed to be rushed into treatment. He said that had a chest X-ray been immediately taken, the tear in Ritter's aorta would have been found and he could have been taken to surgery.

Defense attorney Stephen C. Fraser attacked the expert on cross-examination, suggesting he was biased because Ritter's wife had recently spoken at a symposium arranged by Elefteriades and dedicated to the memory of Ritter.

The defense was expected to call its own experts on the disease.

Comments

[Eric8869]

John Ritter? Henry Winkler? Throw in Lou Ferrigno, Charlene Tilton, Gabe Kaplan and we have battle of the network stars!!!!!!

[adc]

He's dead? CORRECTAMUNDO!!!

[martinchill]

"The trial follows settlements with Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and other medical personnel for about $14 million."

.

[avicenna]

This is a heartbreaking story - but one which really won't be made better by suing the hospital. How common is having a tear in the aorta? How often would it be useful to give a person presenting with chest pains an x-ray when looking at the risk/benefit ratio? Losing someone like John Ritter is hard enough on those under the pressure of losing him, but this kind of allocation of blame will be ruinous to both the doctors and hospital - who may be at fault for deliberate negligence in other cases - but this isn't one of them.

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

Obviously you have never worked in a CCU, otherwise you wouldn't write such ignorant garbage. A tear in the aorta can be repaired with prompt surgery. A chest x-ray should most certainly be given upon presenting with the kinds of symptoms Ritter was displaying, and to not do so, is simply negligence. The hospital and attending physician are responsible for his death, and therefore must be held legally liable. I hope you never have to go through the death of a loved one caused by incompetence, negligence or just because the attending physician doesn't happen to like your loved one, but doctors kill patients every single day in America.

National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine (IOM), July 2006 reports preventable medication mistakes also injure more than 1.5 million Americans annually.

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to another study of 37 million patient records, published in the JAMA October 2003.

[avicenna]

I am a scientist who works in endocrinology - I don't work with acute cardiology cases, but I do know that heart attacks are far more common (about 1.5 million annually in the United States, vs. approximately 2,000 for aortic dissections). In Canada we usually administer an ECG to those presenting with cardiac arrest. Only when a heart attack is ruled out that other possibilities are looked to. A small percentage of people with aortic tears do actually end up having a heart attack - so I'm not sure what the particulars are in John's case. When aortic dissection is suspected, any of several imaging methods can be used - though some are more effective than others - the choice may depend on what equipment is available at a particular hospital. A chest x-ray is sometimes helpful if it shows the aorta to be abnormally wide, but this clue is not always present.
I entirely agree that there are too many deaths and illnesses due to negligence - on both the part of the patient and the doctors who don't recommend lifestyle changes. Hypertension is highly correlated with a ruptured aortoa. Instead of punishing the emergency team so that they are even less well-equipped to deal with America's progressively worse preventable health issues - educating the public about the consequence of lifestyle factors may have been as equally affective in preventing John Ritter's death.

[Mulligan]

A chest x-ray is a standard diagnostic test run when a patient presents with chest pain. Typically, when a patient presents with chest pains, vitals are taken, a portable x-ray is brought in for a couple of very quick pics, and then the patient is set up on an EKG.
The doctor did not follow this protocol.
The doctor diagnosed a heart attack due to a clogged artery without any diagnostic tests and presented the family with two choices. One choice was to take immediate action and treat for heart attack by running a cathetar through the aorta. The second choice was to follow protocol and take an exray.
The doctor advised he may not survive the diagnostic process due to the time involved, so the family consented to immediate treatment.
However, the diagnosis was incorrect. By inserting a cathetar into an already disected aorta, the aorta was completely severed and there was zero hope for recovery at that point.
If the doctor felt he would not survive the diagnostic process due to time factors, the prudent decision would have been emergency surgery to crack his chest and see what was going on in there. Radical yes, but faster and life saving.
However, insurance companies don't typically support these kinds of decisions, so doctors often go with the more conservative (and cheaper) alternatives.
This situation called for aggressive diagnosis and treatment, but that never happened. The doctor blames the family for their choice, yet it is not the family that went to medical school.
Bottom line, this doctor screwed up and now he's going to have to pay. Unfortunately, this poor woman and her children will never be able to be fully compensated for their loss, and poor Jonn's life was needlessly cut short.
You are absolutely incorrect in saying that this is not a case of negligence. If the allocation is ruinous to this dr, so be it.
Maybe you should have read ALL of the reports on this story before commenting.

[rini]

I thought they said something about a chest CT. This is even more detailed than a chest x-ray and would show everything an x-ray shows, and more. Maybe I am wrong about the case, though I haven't been following it.

[lippp]

He may have been talented, but he was also bloated. Where was his wife when he needed her to help him loose weight? No surprise he had coronary arrest. It is a sad turn of events but to pin the guilt on the physician seems unfair unless the doc or hospital blatently were incompetent.

[rini]

He's dead already. There is no use blaming the victim. None of us have a perfect lifestyle. Sure, if he were still alive and if I were a close friend, I might have said something, but now?

It also sounds as if he was treated properly. It was unfortunate that the CT didn't reveal the problem in time . Sometimes symptoms start before you can see it on imaging. His symptoms could have been a heart attack or dissection, among other things, It wasn't apparent which one it was, until it was too late.

[totalliberal]

Thank you Dr. Lippp. Did you study in the Bill Frist school of TV medicine?

You are a thoughtless ignorant moron.

[lippp]

I am not ignorant. Have a Masters Degree with an emphasis in disabilities. The fact is obesity is the root of most deaths in Ritters age group. To blame the doctors is absurd from what I know of this case. I have lost too many friends (one is too many) because of obesity. Unfortunately when one literally kills themselves with overeating all too often those around them look the other way. To then blame the health professionals who tried to help them is cowardly, quite frankly.

[Mulligan]

You're not just an ass, you'r also ignorant. Maybe you should research before you speak.
Aortic disection is not the result of being overweight except in extreme cases of morbid obesity.
John likely had a congenital weakness or vulnerability in the aortic wall that weakened over time until it ruptured.
Regardless, with proper diagnosis and treatment, John would still be alive today.
Don't be blaming him or his wife for the mistakes made by a doctor who's as much an ignoramous as you are.

[ClaudiaJean]

The point is, if he'd been properly diagnosed and treated, he might not have died. Valid argument.

I think John's wife would be the best judge of what her husband would have wanted. That said, his wife, Amy Yasbeck, is on record stating that any monies won would be used to create the John Ritter Foundation. It would be the creation of a charity. So no, she neither needs nor wants the money. What she wants is her husband back - that's not possible.

[lacitepq]

A creation of a charity at the expense of the hospital, the doctors' reputations, the insurance companies and ultimately all of us in higher premiums. How noble. My guess is that if John is watching all of this he would just want his family to move on with living their lives.

[IndyStacey]

Yes, wanting to prevent other families from suffering a senseless tragedy IS noble. How incredibly presumptuous and arrogant for you to "guess" what John would want.

[ClaudiaJean]

My guess is, John Ritter's friends and family are the best judges of what John Ritter, their friend and family member, would want them to do. Perhaps he would like to see them help this happen to others? Don't speak for those you don't know.

[lippp]

Well, you may be right. However, I do quite a bit of forensic work and I can tell you there are many cases that were not correctly diagnosed, but that was not the fault of the doctor or hospital. There are times when what happened could not have been prevented. I beleive I read x-rays were taken in the not too distant past which did not show a tear in aorta. I also know Mr. Ritter was obese. No question. Whether you like it or not that fact complicated the diagnoses. No question. And by the way, those cases which show that the doctors did due diligence regardless of the outcome usually are found not responsible.

[ClaudiaJean]

Weight may be a contributing factor but you seem hung up on that point. And the doctors may have done everything right and got it wrong; and then again, they may have not. There is a reason hospitals and doctors pay such high premiums on malpractice insurance; malpractice is real. As are human errors. Find out what happened; who, if anyone, is to blame in the tragedy, or what mistakes were made, or what couldn't be helped, couldn't be diagnosed and figure out how to help others not suffer the loss this family did.

[lacitepq]

I think this is sad that his wife is litigating this. His legacy is a good one - why tarnish it with this nonsensce. Does she need the money that badly?. I don't think John would approve. What's the point really.

[eplatypusunum]

Agreed. Medicine can never be exact and without flaw. Litigating everything has made many medical specialties extremely unappealing to med school grads. Try finding an OB/GYN in a rural area.
People die and it is always sad. Cashing in on grief is an American industry now.
(And lawsuits like this, after already getting $14 million from the hospital, just jades people about all malpractice suits. Then the folks who really, truly NEED to be compensated for errors lose the sympathy they ought to receive.)

epu