Lawsuit Claims Woman Left in ER Lobby at DCH Northport Delivered Stillborn Alone in Bathroom

A medical malpractice lawsuit filed Friday afternoon in Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court alleges that staff at DCH's Northport Medical Center left a young, pregnant woman in the emergency department waiting room for roughly four hours last summer, never checked her baby for a heartbeat and never gave her an exam by a physician before she ultimately delivered her stillborn baby alone in a lobby bathroom.

The suit names the DCH Health Care Authority, two registered nurses and eight "fictitious" defendants whose identities the plaintiff says are not yet known, which is standard practice.

The complaint was filed by D. Leon Ashford of the Birmingham firm Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, the same attorney who sued DCH Regional Medical Center in 2022 over the death of Tuscaloosa Tourism figure Bill Buchanan. The parties agreed to settle and dismiss that lawsuit in 2024.

The new case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Daniel Pruet.

The complaint, obtained by the Tuscaloosa Thread, is built in part around a federal investigation. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reviewed the care provided at Northport, interviewed the providers involved, and examined DCH's own policies, according to the filing, and Ashford cites their report repeatedly.

The allegations have not been proven, and DCH has not yet filed a response in court.

Four Hours in the Lobby

The plaintiff, whom the Thread has chosen not to identify by name in this report, is a woman who was 20 and pregnant with her first child in August of 2025. She had experienced intermittent bleeding throughout the pregnancy, but her prenatal care had been unremarkable, and a heartbeat was routinely found at her clinic visits, according to the lawsuit.

Then, in mid-August 2025, she called her clinic reporting pressure and blood-tinged fluid, and her physician told her to go to the emergency room at DCH.

The lawsuit claims the young pregnant woman signed in at Northport Medical Center at 5:19 p.m., reporting heavy bleeding and cramping while about 17 weeks pregnant.

A nurse then assigned her an Emergency Severity Index score of 2, a classification for patients who are not in immediate danger of dying but have a high-risk condition requiring rapid evaluation by a provider. The scale runs from 1 to 5, with 1 being the most severe.

Even so, she remained in the lobby and was checked on at about 5:45 p.m., when her vitals were taken.

At 6:15 p.m., a second nurse performed an intake triage assessment and confirmed the ESI 2 classification, but the complaint says the plaintiff was still left in the lobby. By then, she had reportedly bled through two pads in the previous hour and rated her pain a 7.

According to the lawsuit, CMS found that DCH's triage guidelines required the woman to be placed in a treatment room, but she was either left in or returned to the lobby to wait.

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Suit Claims Bed Was Available

The complaint uses the CMS report to dig into what staff told federal investigators about how busy the emergency department was that night. One nurse reportedly told CMS the hospital was "slammed, packed wall to wall, nowhere to sit."

But the lawsuit also claims a nurse manager later confirmed to CMS that one bed, 11B, sat unoccupied and available from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. while the woman was in the lobby.

The complaint also alleges that someone in the emergency department spoke with the woman's family after 7 p.m., heard that her bleeding had increased, and said they would pass it along to the physician, but no entry documenting that conversation appears in the chart.

A Stillbirth in the Lobby Bathroom

The complaint says the woman's vital signs were recorded again around 7:30 p.m. for only the second time since her 5:15 arrival, and at no point did anyone check the baby's heartbeat, which the lawsuit says is required by DCH's own protocols.

"[The nurses] failed to reassess [the plaintiff's] vaginal bleeding and abdominal cramping after the 7:31 p.m. vital signs. Further, they returned her to the lobby to wait rather than taking her to an ED treatment room where fetal heart tones could be obtained," Ashford wrote. "The failure of these nurses to determine the viability of [the plaintiff's] baby is not just a violation of the standard of care, it is beyond the pale of acceptable nursing care."

According to the complaint, the young woman was left in the ED waiting room for hours, where her pain increased until she went to the bathroom and delivered the baby, stillborn at 17 weeks.

A nurse's note at 9:30 p.m. documented that the woman was brought into a treatment room with the fetus in her arms and the placenta still attached. The fetus showed no signs of life at birth, and the on-call obstetrician arrived shortly afterward and clamped and cut the cord.

The Lawsuit

Afterward, the woman was described in her records as appearing to be in shock and was given medication for insomnia and grief. A postpartum note documented the potential for post-traumatic stress disorder. She returned to the emergency department a month later with severe abdominal pain, fever, vomiting and other issues.

The three-count complaint brings claims under the Alabama Medical Liability Act for medical negligence and wantonness.

It alleges DCH and its staff failed to recognize an obstetric emergency, failed to move her out of the lobby, failed to monitor and reassess a high-risk patient, failed to recognize signs of active labor, and failed to train emergency department staff on the hospital's own policies.

The lawsuit says DCH "[placed the plaintiff] in a traumatic and degrading medical emergency in which she delivered her baby alone and without appropriate care in a public ED waiting room bathroom."

It seeks compensatory damages on one count and punitive damages on the other two. A jury trial has been requested.

"The profound shame and mental anguish [she] suffered was caused by a reckless indifference to the severity of her condition on the part of her health care providers in the ED," Ashford wrote. "It is conduct which is impossible to defend or explain away."

Ashford declined to comment on the plaintiff's behalf beyond what he wrote in the filing. A DCH spokesperson also said they could not speak about the suit ahead of publication.

"We are aware of the lawsuit that has been filed. DCH does not comment on pending litigation," they said. "Providing safe, high-quality care to our patients remains our highest priority."

For more on this lawsuit as it develops, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.

Editor's Notes: This lawsuit was independently found in a regular review of cases filed in Tuscaloosa County. The Thread has elected not to identify the plaintiff in this case or the nurses named as defendants, given the nature of the loss described in the complaint and the fact that the allegations remain unproven. The Thread has not independently reviewed the CMS report and is relying on the complaint's description of its findings.