After Body Bag, Life Goes On

Jan. 24--RALEIGH -- Two years after Larry D. Green was found breathing inside a plastic body bag at the Franklin County morgue, he remains hospitalized with the possibility that he might never fully recover.

"Every time I see him, it really brings a lot of pain," said his father, Larry Alston.

Alston visits Green, now 31, daily at a Wilson rehabilitation hospital, but Green has trouble regularly recognizing him and other family members who come.

Green can't walk or hold lengthy conversations and has no recollection of the accident Jan. 24, 2005, when he tried to walk across U.S. 401 near N.C. 39 outside of Louisburg and was hit by a car.

This evening, on the two-year anniversary of the accident, Alston, other family members and friends will gather at the intersection where Green was hit.

The two paramedics who made the determination that Green was dead were fired by the county, which has since adopted stronger policies on how to declare a person dead in emergencies.

The night Green was struck by a passing Toyota, his head and leg injuries were so severe that a pool of blood a foot in width collected under his head.

Emergency responders arrived at 8:53 p.m. on the cold January night and pronounced Green dead shortly after. They couldn't detect a breath or pulse in the Louisburg man, but they did not use an electrocardiogram monitor or a stethoscope, which would have shown that Green's heart continued to beat. A probe about the emergency response conducted by Franklin County authorities found the paramedics didn't try to revive Green.

A medical examiner, Dr. J.B. Perdue, arrived at the scene within a half-hour and examined what he thought were mortal wounds before Green was zipped up inside a thick plastic body bag and sent a mile away to the morgue.

Perdue dismissed movement of Green's chest and a twitching eyelid as post-mortem reactions, the Franklin County investigation found.

Two hours and 26 minutes after Green was struck, the coroner saw Green take a breath and realized that he was alive.

Two emotional years

Green has spent the past two years in hospitals. Alston visits him daily and said his Pentecostal religion has helped him through what have been two emotional years.

"You don't know how much you need Christ until something happens," he said.

Well-wishers from as far away as Australia have contacted Alston, who lives in Zebulon, as well as Green's mother, Ruby Kelly of Louisburg. Green's family is grateful he is alive but continues to struggle with the possibility that Green, on disability for a nervous condition before the accident, may never improve.

"This is the way he may always be," said Alston, who added that his only son's mental capabilities parallel that of a young child.

Alston said the family is managing to pay the medical bills but won't say what Green's care costs are in light of legal action the family might take against Franklin County.

The family's attorney, Robert C. Younce Jr., said that a lawsuit could be filed against Franklin County within the next few weeks. County Attorney Darnell Batton said he hadn't been contacted about a lawsuit.

Several changes took place after the erroneous diagnosis, said Chris Coudriet, Franklin County's manager. "Two years has passed, and obviously there still is conversation," Coudriet said.

Changes for EMS

All responding paramedics and emergency medical technicians now have to attach patients to an EKG monitor to determine whether they're dead, said Johnnie Gilliam, who heads the county's EMS department.

Two Franklin County paramedics, Wade R. Kearney II and Paul Kilmer, were fired and initially stripped of their paramedic licenses. Kearney, who arrived first at the scene, did not attempt to resuscitate Green, and Kilmer deferred to Kearney's assumption that Green was dead, according to the county's investigation.

Kearney has since reapplied and received his paramedic license from the state, while Kilmer was recertified as an emergency medical technician, said Drexdal Pratt, chief of the N.C. Office of Emergency Medical Services. Kearney said he is not working as a paramedic. Kilmer could not be reached for comment.

Perdue, the medical examiner who initially dismissed Green's signs of life at the accident scene and the morgue, continues to serve as Franklin County's medical examiner, said Dr. John D. Butts, North Carolina's chief medical examiner.

Perdue's responses were never evaluated, Butts said.

"Since he [Green] didn't end up being dead, there was no official records or review of the case," Butts said.

(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)

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