MACHIAS, Maine — The Maine attorney general’s office likely will appeal a district court judge’s denial of a motion to retry the case against a nurse who discharged a 61-year-old patient later found dead in the snow.
John Zablotny was the nursing supervisor on duty at Down East Community Hospital in Machias on Jan. 1, 2008, when patient Reid Emery asked to be discharged against his doctor’s advice.
Zablotny, finding Emery competent to discharge himself, allowed the patient to leave the hospital on foot in a snowstorm wearing only jeans and a flannel shirt, according to court documents. Emery had reportedly told the nurse he was walking a short distance to a friend’s house.
Emery’s body was found the next morning beneath more than a foot of snow about 380 feet from the main entrance of the hospital, according to court documents.
The Maine State Nursing Board in June 2010 determined Zablotny had violated his professional duties by not informing Emery he risked hypothermia and death by leaving the hospital during the snowstorm. The board revoked Zablotny’s license for two years.
Zablotny appealed his license revocation, and in December 2015, Machias District Court Judge David Mitchell ruled that although Zablotny’s actions were “unprofessional and highly disturbing,” the Maine State Nursing Board did not prove that his actions demonstrated incompetence or an inability to practice.
The judge overturned the two-year suspension of Zablotny’s license and imposed concurrent 90-day suspensions of his license. Zablotny, who has worked at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor since 2008, already had served 104 days of the two-year suspension, so no additional discipline was required.
The attorney general’s office, on behalf of the nursing board, then filed a motion for the judge to reconsider the case, but Mitchell denied that request in a ruling issued on Jan. 13.
“We just won again,” Zablotny’s attorney, Joseph Baldacci declared that day.
In his latest ruling, Mitchell said the nursing board argued that Zablotny violated a standard of professional care in nursing when he failed to call either the police or Emery’s wife when Emery made the decision to leave the hospital.
“Unfortunately, there are no cases in Maine establishing whether a nurse’s failure to contact the police when a competent patient’s decision to leave the hospital [against medical advice], causing an imminent risk of danger to himself, violates a standard of professional behavior,” the ruling states. “Nor are there any cases in Maine establishing whether the nurse violates an established standard of nursing care by failing to notify the patient’s emergency contact in this situation, especially when the competent patient has specifically instructed the nurse not to discuss the discharge with that individual.”
In his response to the ruling, Tim Feeley, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said last week that he was pleased with the court’s conclusion that Zablotny “committed egregious acts of unprofessional conduct.”
But he added, “We anticipate that an appeal will be likely on the issue of the court’s conclusion that Mr. Zablotny had no duty to notify the police, Mr. Emery’s emergency contact, or Mr. Emery’s physician, even though Mr. Emery’s departure was placing him in imminent danger.”