The Nation - News from July 20, 1986

A New York jury awarded $65 million to a woman who said she was misdiagnosed by doctors at a city-run hospital, but the city said it will ask the court to reduce the amount because it is “excessive.” Agnes Whittaker, 55, of Brooklyn, had gone to Lincoln Hospital on July 15, 1982, complaining of abdominal pain after eating an egg roll. During 18 hours of examination, during which her bowel was punctured, she was finally diagnosed as having gastritis and sent home, her lawyer said. Later the same day she went to St. Barnabas Hospital, where doctors discovered an obstruction in her intestines and surgically removed all but 2 feet of the organ.