PERRY, Mich. -- The mother of a brain-damaged 3-year-old girl who was awarded an out-of-court settlement that could amount to $13 million said Thursday the money 'is nothing.'
Marla Densteadt, the mother of Cortney Densteadt, told the Lansing State Journal that the settlement with Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich., rekindled the bad times she lived through when her daughter was born.
'It was like being in labor,' Mrs. Densteadt said, 'like feeling you are right in the death throes all over again. And every time I talk about it, I start crying.'
The child was born prematurely in 1978 at Hurley. The parents' Flint attorney, John Nickola, said doctors believed the infant was a 20-week-old fetus and could not survive. The baby was allegedly left untreated in a room of the hospital until it was found, gasping for breath, by a janitor. The janitor notified hospital personnel who began to revive the infant.
Cortney is now blind, suffers from brain damage, cannot walk and can barely speak.
The settlement reached with the hospital entitles her to a series of payments that could total $13 million if she reaches the age of 74. The family will receive $400,000 immediately.
'Money can't buy her eyesight. It can't make her walk,' said Mrs. Densteadt. 'The money is nothing.'
Mrs. Densteadt called the janitor who found Cortney 'the real unsung hero of the story.
'It's a profile in courage,' she said of Larry Lane, who discovered the child. 'He knew in his heart what was right, and he refused to shut up about it.'
The Densteadts contended the child was actually a 30-week-old fetus that could have developed normally if treated properly at birth. They also said the child was not taken to the hospital's special neo-natal unit, but to the regular nursery for treatment after being found.
Nickola said the case does not reflect on the quality of Hurley Medical Center, which he called 'a fine hospital.'
However, he said, 'In this case, somebody didn't push a button; they didn't do anything.'
