Family of deceased student to sue hospital, fraternity

The family of an IU student who died in February said it plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit today. The lawsuit will say that a fraternity and a local hospital played roles in their son's death, the family said Thursday.\nSeth Korona, 19, died Feb. 4 of bleeding in the brain caused by a skull fracture he sustained at a Jan. 27 party at Theta Chi. Korona was hospitalized two days later and remained in a coma until he was taken off life support. Monroe County Prosecutor Carl Salzmann decided not to file charges.\nThe suit will be filed this afternoon in a federal district court in Indianapolis, family lawyer Richard Hailey said.\nThree parties -- Theta Chi International, the fraternity's disbanded local chapter and Bloomington Hospital -- will be named in the lawsuit.\nBloomington Hospital officials had not received the lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Jonna Risher said.\n"We have not been officially notified of a lawsuit on this case, so we have no comment at this time," Risher said.\nIU spokesman Bill Stephan said the University hadn't seen the suit, so any comment would be premature.\n"It would be inappropriate for us to comment at this juncture," he said.\nTheta Chi Executive Director Dave Westol did not return a phone message by press time.\nPolice said Korona hit his head on a metal door frame after doing a keg stand at the party.\nIn May, Hailey said his own investigator revealed that keg stands are part of a "Theta Chi ritual" that was done with potential pledges. He said that fraternity officers and members observed and encouraged Korona's keg stand and that more than a dozen members witnessed it.\nTheta Chi's local chapter was disbanded after Korona's death.\nThe Korona family had also planned to name the University in the suit. But because the University would not turn over documents created during the IU Police Department investigation into Korona's death, the family decided to wait, Hailey said. Once legal proceedings begin, the family plans to subpoena the University for the IUPD record, he said.\nThe University also refused to release the documents to the IDS after repeated requests earlier this year.\nThe Korona family is pursuing legal recourse to hold people responsible for their own actions, said Seth's mother, Wendy Korona.\nGary Korona, Seth's father, said he wants more information about his son's death. But there's more to the lawsuit than that, he said.\n"Like my wife said, I want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else," he said.\nPart of the motivation of filing suit, Hailey said, was "getting the other pieces to the puzzle."\nHailey said he does not expect the lawsuit to go to trial until 2003.\nIn calling a lawsuit "inevitable" in May, Hailey told the IDS that the hospital "botched" Korona's treatment, that IU was lenient on Theta Chi and that the fraternity was a "free-flowing river of alcohol." \nThe fraternity served Everclear "rush punch" and had several kegs at the party.\nHailey said doctors and nurses, who are referred to anonymously in the lawsuit, must go before a medical review panel before being officially named in the suit.\nDoctors initially treated Korona for meningitis, but culture tests eventually ruled out the bacteria.\n"(The hospital) had a semiconscious male walk into their emergency room, and I think he carried in that room a subdural hematoma that went undiagnosed and untreated," Hailey said.\nWendy Korona said the staff at Bloomington Hospital was caring and concerned but simply missed the diagnosis.\n"I thought they were educated enough to make the proper diagnosis, but they obviously missed it," she said.\nAn initial CT scan would have found the head injury, but focused only on Korona's sinuses, she said.\nWendy Korona said that on Tuesday evening -- the day of the first CT scan -- she received an anonymous phone call at the hospital from someone who said he saw her son hit his head after doing a keg stand at Theta Chi.\n"I remember telling one of the nurses he may have hit his head on the keg," Wendy Korona said.\nBut another CT scan wasn't ordered until Korona suffered a stroke and a seizure that Wednesday. \nKorona went into surgery to relieve pressure on his brain and was taken off life support the next Sunday.\nMonroe County Coroner Dave Toumey told the IDS in February that if doctors had known immediately that Korona had sustained a blow to the head, they might have been able to do more to treat him.\nState law limits damages that could be imposed on Bloomington Hospital at $1.25 million, Hailey said. \nThere is no cap on Theta Chi's liability.