By BETH WARREN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/27/08

A Gwinnett County jury has awarded $5 million in damages to the family of a new mother who drowned in a bathtub at Gwinnett Medical Center.Jeff Harris one of the family's attorneys, said Tuesday that nurses should have checked on Wendy Wyckstandt, 34, and concluded she was too weak to shower without assistance.

Wyckstandt, a native of England who was being treated for post-partum high blood pressure, collapsed in a bathtub while taking a shower five days after Thanksgiving 2000. Her mother later found her and she died a day later. The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital's parent company, Gwinnett Health System, in 2002.Harris alleged the hospital altered medical records and kept evidence from the patient's attorneys in what stretched into a six-year legal battle.

"The hospital is still trying to dodge responsibility," he said.

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