Briana Galvan left the hospital to run errands on March 16, 2024, knowing that her father was recovering.
Steven Westrum, 80, had recently had a stroke and had been admitted to M Health Fairview Southdale with shortness of breath and pneumonia only four days before. However, his condition had improved enough that he was moved to a step-down unit while awaiting transfer to a nursing home.
Briana received a call just a few hours later to return to the hospital. When she arrived, she was not allowed to enter her father’s room and was directed to the chapel. There, she was informed that her father had died.
“It was unbelievable,” Briana told me, “based on the condition that I saw him in that morning.”
Briana said the hospital informed her that Steven had external bleeding but provided no further information.
“They said he had bled externally, but they were not aware of what had happened yet, that they would need to do some investigation and look into it,” she told me.
She went two months without receiving an answer. Then came the autopsy.
According to records, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office declined to conduct a forensic autopsy on Steven Westrum because his death did not appear to be the result of an intentional act.
That left the autopsy, which Briana requested, to be completed by the M Health Fairview system.
Briana claims that after the hospital autopsy was completed in May 2024, she was contacted to schedule a meeting to discuss the findings.
Briana, who works in risk management, told KARE 11 she was suspicious due to the lack of responses she had received thus far, so she and her husband decided to secretly record the meeting.
Briana received business cards from the two hospital representatives in attendance, indicating that she met with Dr. Dan Frechette, Fairview Health Services’ vice president of medical affairs at Ridges and Southdale hospitals, as well as VP Adam Karlen, Fairview’s chief nursing officer.
“In this case, a bleeding event may have contributed, and it is our responsibility to be transparent about that,” one of the men can be heard telling Briana in the recording, “and also to do what we can to try to address it from happening in the future.”
The hospital executives explained that Steven’s IV catheter had become disconnected at some point in the afternoon, but they didn’t know when or how, and that the uncapped catheter — which lacked backflow prevention — was the source of what they called “the bleeding event.”
They described the event as “extremely rare,” but downplayed its known role in Steven’s death.
“I think it’s just so difficult to know what the impact of that was,” one of the hospital representatives explained.
“We can’t say definitively that this caused your father’s death,” Briana was told during the recording.
M Health Fairview’s autopsy results also offered few answers, but one important clue.
The M Health Fairview autopsy on the body of Steven Westrum was conducted by pathologists at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.
On the first page, the anatomic cause of death is listed as “Not Identified.”
A number of significant contributory conditions are listed, including severe coronary artery disease, hypertension and pneumonia.
Blood loss is not one of the contributing conditions listed.
However, on page five, under the “Clinical Information” section, there is a notation that Briana immediately notices.
“It’s like reading a horror story,” she said, staring at the document.
The note begins: “He was found with an uncapped IV catheter in his arm and was lying in a pool of blood that was congealed at the edges.”
Despite the clinical finding that Steven lost so much blood that it pooled beneath him, pathologists concluded that “multiple medical conditions were identified at autopsy, and correlated with clinical information, that may have contributed to his death.”
Their verdict was: “Taken together, these findings do not point to an acute or specific cause of death.”
Steven’s autopsy revealed that his death was “natural.”
Briana received another call from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office on May 30, 2024, just a few days after her meeting with hospital executives.
This call would fundamentally alter her understanding of her father’s death.
The ME’s office was preparing her father’s death certificate and wanted to review the facts and wording. Briana was told that the official cause of death was exsanguination, or severe blood loss caused by a catheter mishap.
Briana learned for the first time that her father did not die from a natural combination of his underlying health conditions. She was instead told that he had bled to death in his hospital bed.
“Unbelievable, unbelievable,” she exclaimed. “There’s nothing natural about this, nothing!”
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s records show that Steven died due to an uncapped IV, contrary to Briana’s claims from M Health Fairview.
According to the ME investigator’s narrative, on March 16, 2024, Dr. Christopher Aronson from Fairview Southdale Hospital called the ME’s office to report the death. According to his account, “a lab tech went into the decedent’s room to draw blood and found the decedent unresponsive with a pool of blood on the floor next to his bed.”
Steven was estimated to have lost “about 4 liters of blood.”
According to internal hospital notes obtained by Briana, staff wrote, “There was a large amount of blood on the left side of the patient’s body and a large pool of blood underneath the patient’s bed, which was apparently congealed at the edges and dried (did not wet the tip of the glove).”
“The human body only holds about five liters of blood,” explains Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist and former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
At KARE 11’s request, Dr. Weedn reviewed all of the hospital’s medical and autopsy records, as well as the ME reports. He believes the autopsy “reeks of hospital protectionism.”
“It’s significant when you see that four liters of blood was lost?” KARE 11 asked.
“Oh, yes,” Weedn said, “Four liters of blood is obviously a lethal event. There is no mystery as to what caused Mr. Westrum’s death. He undoubtedly died from blood loss.”
Briana has since hired attorney Jeff Montpetit and plans to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against M Health Fairview. Montpetit described the case as “the most deviant thing I have ever seen in my history as a lawyer.”
In response to KARE 11’s investigation, M Health Fairview declined an interview.
However, after being repeatedly questioned by KARE 11 about the details of its autopsy, the hospital system reversed course. It admitted it was a mistake to list the manner of death as “natural.” The hospital system also stated that it would be changed to “accidental.”
KARE 11 made the editorial decision to publish the lengthy statement in its entirety:
We are deeply saddened by Mr. Westrum’s death and regret the circumstances surrounding it. While adverse events are uncommon, we believe that even one is too many.
We want to be clear: our care team informed Mr. Westrum’s family about the IV catheter disconnection and visible bleeding that occurred following the incident. These details were documented in the medical record, discussed with the family, incorporated into the hospital’s autopsy narrative, and reported to regulatory agencies. We take each incident seriously, and this extremely unusual complication was no exception.
The hospital autopsy report stated that the cause of death was “not identified” and the manner of death was “natural.” Following further review, we recognize that this classification may not accurately reflect the circumstances surrounding the event. Depending on the clinical situation, a classification of “undetermined” or “accidental” might have been more appropriate. The classification in the autopsy report had no bearing on how we responded to this incident. It had no bearing on our disclosure process with the family, our reporting through appropriate oversight and safety reporting channels, or our thorough investigation of the event and development of corrective action plans.
This was not an attempt to mislead or hide what happened. Rather, it reflects the fact that more than 95% of hospital deaths are classified as natural, with non-natural classifications being rare. Our chief of pathology has reviewed this case and will provide additional training and process updates to the pathology team as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, learning, and patient safety.
–M Health Fairview.
Steven Westrum wanted his ashes spread in Copper Harbor, Michigan, a place he enjoyed visiting.
Briana intends to fulfill that wish this summer by embarking on a final journey with her father, who, despite being 80 years old and in failing health, she believes died too soon.
“He bled out externally — almost all the blood in his body over a period of time,” she told me, “and no accountability for that.”