Oregon teen dies of sepsis after doctors fail to clean wound before stitching, lawsuit says

An Oregon family alleged in a $100 million lawsuit that their 18-year-old son died from an infection after doctors at a Corvallis hospital did not remove pine needles and debris from his wound before stitching it up.

Ethan Cantrell, 18, died Aug. 20, 2024, days after he went to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center for an injury to his right arm, a civil lawsuit filed last month in Multnomah County Circuit Court states.

The medical negligence lawsuit was filed by Cantrell’s father against the hospital and two doctors who treated the teen.

Tyler Jacobsen, vice president and chief legal officer for Samaritan Health Services, said they will respond to the lawsuit “through the appropriate legal process.”

“Our sympathies are with all who have been impacted by this loss,” Jacobsen said in a statement Tuesday.

The suit says that on Aug. 15, 2024, Cantrell was cutting wood when he was stabbed in the arm. An emergency room doctor at Good Samaritan examined him, “attempted to irrigate” the wound with saline, and then sutured it “tightly,” according to the lawsuit.

The doctor ordered an X-ray of Cantrell’s arm, which the suit says showed “soft tissue air, but no bone abnormality and no radio-opaque foreign body.” The suit notes that wood, dirt and pine needles generally do not show up on X-rays.

Cantrell was ultimately prescribed an antibiotic to take for seven days and was discharged.

But that afternoon, he began experiencing pain and swelling in his right arm and an elevated temperature. The suit says that the teen’s mother called the hospital and was told by a nurse that there was no cause for concern because he was taking antibiotics.

Cantrell still had a fever the next day and his arm had become “more painful and swollen,” the suit says. He was also having headaches and difficulty breathing.

That night, his mother called the hospital again and a nurse instructed her to take Cantrell to the emergency room. The suit says that he was seen by the same doctor, who then suspected that Cantrell had a deep-tissue infection.

The doctor did not remove the sutures or broaden the spectrum of antibiotics Cantrell had been prescribed, according to the lawsuit.

Over the next couple of hours, Cantrell’s condition worsened, the suit says. The doctor discussed the case with orthopedics and Cantrell was assessed by another doctor, according to the suit.

As the teen continued to deteriorate, his right arm began to swell two or three times more than his left, and his wound began leaking fluid. He also had a limited range of motion in his arm, the suit says.

A doctor at the hospital cut open the teen’s wound and removed “over twelve pieces of organic plant matter, including twigs, pine needles, and moss,” according to the lawsuit. Cultures were obtained, which confirmed a bacterial infection.

The suit says that Cantrell was eventually transferred to Oregon Health & Science University hospital, where doctors immediately recognized his condition as life-threatening, stabilized him and performed multiple surgeries, including amputating his arm up to his shoulder.

But his condition deteriorated further, and he died on Aug. 20 from “necrotizing soft tissue infection from a puncture injury in his right arm,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit alleges that Good Samaritan and its doctors were negligent in their treatment of Cantrell.

“As a result of Defendants’ negligence that killed Ethan, his mother Jody Mae Cantrell, father Chris Steven Cantrell, as well as his siblings Kymberlee Cantrell, Myla Cantrell, and Thea Cantrell, have all suffered damages,” the suit says.