A Trail of Medical Errors Ends in Grief, But No Answers

Paula Schulte couldn’t survive a cascade of medical mistakes. After that, her family couldn’t get accountability.

by Marshall Allen and Olga Pierce
ProPublica, Dec. 18, 2015, 5 a.m.
This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.

Over the course of her lifetime, Paula Schulte survived painful scoliosis that contorted her spine, a head injury that left her in a coma for weeks, and cancer that cost her part of a lung.

What she couldn’t survive was 11 weeks in Florida hospitals.

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A fall from bed broke her hip and wrist — injuries that went undiagnosed for days. A hip replacement became infected, requiring another surgery. A displaced IV pumped a caustic drug into her arm until it ballooned to the size of a melon.

Schulte died as a rare syndrome, thought to be triggered by a reaction to medication, blistered her eyelids and attacked her internal organs. Doctors said it was the type of condition they had only read about in textbooks.

Horrifying, tragic story.