$50m lawsuit filed against Southfield EMS after woman declared dead, later found alive

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – Geoffrey Fieger announced Thursday he was filed a $50 million lawsuit against Southfield EMS Paramedics for declaring 20-year-old Timesha Beauchamp dead.

The incident happened on Aug. 23. Beauchamp’s mother called 911 asking for help because she said her daughter was nonresponsive. Paramedics performed CPR on Beauchamp for 30 minutes before declaring her deceased.

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Fieger said the incident left Beauchamp without oxygen for hours and that she was only discovered to still be alive when a funeral home worker opened the body bag to prepare her for embalming.

“The State of Michigan has suspended the licenses of the EMS employees involved. All the telemetry evidence shows that Timesha was alive when EMS declared her dead. As a result of being declared dead, she was left without oxygen for four hours, suffering severe hypoxic brain damage," Fieger said. "Timesha has been hospitalized since these events and remains in critical condition. All of this could have been avoided, had more care been taken.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and assigned to Judge Arthur J. Tarnow for trial by jury.

It is likely that a State complaint will also be filed in the near future.