Family sues John Muir Medical Center after son seriously injured in a swimming accident
By Sarah McGrew
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LAFAYETTE, California (KCRA) — Sitting in the backyard of the home she shares with her husband and daughter, Ofelia Noroozi constantly feels the absence of the fourth member of their family: her son Amin Noroozi.
“Just those everyday little moments are just so cruel,” Ofelia Noroozi said. “It’s like we’re missing what could’ve been. The future.”
Amin Noroozi was a 17-year-old student and multisport athlete at Acalanes High School.
In April, he and his girlfriend, Audrey, and some of their other friends headed to Stinson Beach for the day. Ofelia Noroozi had told her son to be safe while driving on the winding roads leading into the beach community in Marin County.
Later in the day, Ofelia Noroozi’s phone lit up with Amin Noroozi’s name, but when she picked up, it was Audrey’s voice.
“It was Audrey saying that he had gotten into an accident and that he couldn’t feel his legs,” Ofelia Noroozi recalled. “They were waiting for the helicopter to land to airlift him somewhere.”
Amin Noroozi and Audrey had been out in the water, diving through the waves. After going through a wave, Audrey looked behind her to find Amin Noroozi floating face down. When she reached him to flip him over, Amin Noroozi told her he could not feel his legs.
He was airlifted to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. The same hospital where he was born. His neck was broken, and the doctor told the family that Amin Noroozi was paralyzed from the chest down. He needed emergency surgery.
Before going into the operating room, Ofelia Noroozi told her son that she would go to the ends of the Earth to make sure he was OK.
Ofelia Noroozi said one of the last things her son told her before heading back to surgery was, “These legs may not work anymore, but these lips are always going to kiss you.”
The surgery was a success. His parents and younger sister said that, at one point, he wiggled a finger and indicated he could feel a touch on his leg. But in the days after surgery, his condition became increasingly critical.
“You think they would do everything possible for your son,” Amin’s father, Payman Noroozi, said. “There was no point where we were thinking of him dying.”
His parents said his temperature hit 109 degrees, and his heart rate plummeted. Four days after he was admitted to the hospital, he went into cardiac arrest and died.
A lawsuit the family filed on Oct. 9 alleges that “despite the successful surgery, the critical post-surgical care was deficient, disorganized, unsupervised, and spun out of control, directly and unnecessarily causing Amin Noroozi’s suffering and death.”
With tears threatening to spill over, Payman Noroozi said, “I feel like if they couldn’t have done it, they should have told us so we could take him somewhere else. That’s where I feel like failed [Amin].”
The family says Amin Noroozi should have been transferred to a Level 1 pediatric trauma center. John Muir is a Level 2.
In a statement obtained by our colleagues at the San Francisco Chronicle, John Muir declined to comment on the specifics, given the pending litigation and patient privacy policies.
“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Mr. Noroozi,” the hospital said in a statement. “We stand behind the professionalism and dedication of our physicians, nurses, and staff, and we remain focused on patient safety, quality, and continuous improvement.”
The Noroozis know they cannot bring their son back, but they want to prevent something similar from happening to another family.
“No seeing him coming back from school every day — it was going to be his senior year,” Ofelia Noroozi said. “It doesn’t get better. It doesn’t. You just kind of have to keep going.”
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