On July 26, 2017, Blagden arrived at the Graham Hospital emergency department (ED), in Canton, Illinois, complaining of neck pain and an insect bite that had resulted in a swollen elbow. His ED doctor, Matthew McMillin, MD, who worked for Coleman Medical Associates, ordered tests and prescribed an anti-inflammatory pain medication and a muscle relaxant…medscape.com, Doc Never Met Patient Who Died From Insect Bite, but Negligence Suit Moves Forward, Wayne J. Guglielmo, MA, Feb 2023
McMillin consulted via telephone with Kenneth Krock, MD, an internal medicine specialist and pediatrician, who was on call that day.
Krock had final admitting authority in this instance. Court records show that McMillin and he agreed that the patient could be discharged from the ED, despite Krock’s differential diagnosis indicating a possible infection.
Three days later, now with “hypercapnic respiratory failure, sepsis, and an altered mental state,” Blagden was again seen at the Graham Hospital ED. Blagden underwent intubation by McMillin, his original ED doctor, and was airlifted to Methodist Medical Center, in Peoria, 30 miles away. There, an MRI showed that he’d developed a spinal epidural abscess. On August 7, 2017, a little over a week after his admission to Methodist, Blagden died from complications of his infection.