Family sues MercyOne in Sioux City for alleged wrongful death

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - The family of a man that died at MercyOne in Sioux City has filed a lawsuit claiming nurses gave him a lethal dose of drugs that caused cardiac arrest and death.

The complaint alleges negligence and vicarious liability for giving Dreckman a toxic dose of amiodarone and failing to monitor his vital signs.

According to court documents, in September 2021 Michael Dreckman, 65, of Le Mars, Iowa was admitted to MercyOne for acute coronary syndrome. A few days after being admitted, documents say Dreckman underwent successful surgery at MercyOne and was admitted to the intensive care unit afterward.

Documents say two days after the surgery Dreckman was sitting up and walking but on the third day his heartbeat began beating rapidly. In response to this, documents claim MercyOne staff gave Dreckman amiodarone and started him on an intravenous drip of amiodarone. This allegedly amounted to a toxic dose of amiodarone.

The documents claim Dreckman’s heart rate slowed down and began experiencing long life-threatening pauses in his heartbeat (flat lines), followed by intermittent slow beats.

Nurses allegedly did not respond to this and eventually, Dreckman’s heartbeat flatlined. The documents claim Dreckman was flatlined for minutes and no staff responded.

The documents claim that while this was happening Dreckman’s wife and daughter went into the hospital room and saw that he was unresponsive and shouted to the staff for help.

Two nurses responded and, according to documents, a Code Blue was activated and life-saving measures were attempted. In the end, Dreckman was pronounced dead on Sept. 18, 2021. His death certificate lists cardiac arrest as the immediate cause of death.

KTIV reached out to MercyOne about this lawsuit and they provided the following statement.

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