Austin Miles – Jacksonville, FL
Died: August 4th, 2021
Baptist South Hospital – Jacksonville, FL
Austin’s story is being told by his beloved wife, Cristi. Austin was a father of 5, an amazing partner and amazing cook. Always fun loving go with the flow Pisces. Born in Tampa, from Plant City. Head prep at Grumpy’s, He was her ‘Hippie head ginger love muffin’.
My story is actually a horrible nightmare that began on July 21, 2021, the day that Austin was admitted to Baptist South with a partially collapsed lung. The lung was successfully reopened in the ER, but after positive COVID test, he was admitted for some reason. I was made to believe that the tube had to be removed at that hospital, but the pulmonologist Dr. Trent and daily doctor, Dr. Patel had other plans. Plans to make my husband, amazing father to our 5 children, other half of myself, part of a statistic to fatten the pockets of the greedy healthcare system.
Austin showed numerous signs of secondary infection while waiting around to have his chest tubes removed. I begged several times for him to be placed on antibiotics, but was rejected every time. I was never allowed to go in the hospital the entire 2 weeks that he was in there. His white cells were high, he was having discolored mucus when he coughed, he couldn’t catch his breath as easily as the day before, he had a fever after not having one for several days.
They refused a 40-year-old healthy man, refused, refused. Until they finally did a 3-day culture on his blood the day before he died. They still refused to put him on preventative antibiotics. Even though he still had the chest tubes with unchanged bandages. Even though he showed all signs of secondary infection, antibiotics were again refused. On August 3rd, I was waiting for a call to let me know that they were putting him on antibiotics but instead was met with a doctor on the other line letting me know that Austin had to be emergency ventilated without my consent. A man who was just joking with his wife an hour before this emergency procedure through text messages.
I was not in that room and will never know if he really gave them consent. The following day, 24 hours and 24 minutes later after being put on the ventilator, he was dead from cardiac arrest. I happened to call the hospital to get an update and found out when I called that he was going into cardiac arrest and was dying. The hospital did not even call me to tell me he was going into cardiac arrest! The chaplain was already in the room and knew what was happening before I was even informed what was happening with my husband.
Why didn’t they call me and tell me he had gone into cardiac arrest and was dying? And guess what happened next? They finally let me in the room where he died, which was the same room he was assigned, with no negative Covid test, so I could say goodbye to his body. Why wouldn’t they let me in there while he was alive? Because they are hiding things. Please help us get justice for our spouses.