NYC Woman Ended Stranger's Life In Mistaken Identity Case: Suit

THE BRONX, NY — A Brooklyn woman has sued a Bronx hospital after she took a brain-dead man whom she thought was her brother off life support.

A doctor at St. Barnabas Hospital gave Shirell Powell the news in July 2018 that her brother, Frederick Williams, had been admitted unconscious, says the lawsuit in Bronx Supreme Court.

But the man was actually a stranger named Freddy Clarence Williams, the suit says. The mix-up wasn't discovered until about a month later — after Powell let the hospital end the man's life, according to the complaint.

"I nearly fainted because I killed somebody that I didn’t even know," Powell told the New York Post.

The Jan. 18 complaint seeking unspecified damages names St. Barnabas and two unidentified hospital employees as defendants. A spokesman for St. Barnabas said the hospital plans to fight the suit.

"Since we don’t comment on pending litigation, all we can say is that we don’t believe this claim has any merit and we plan to fight it," the spokesman, Steve Clark, said in an email.

Frederick Williams was a former patient at St. Barnabas and his family members were listed as emergency contacts in his patient profile, the lawsuit says. The hospital confused him with Freddy Clarence Williams even though the latter man had identification with him, according to the complaint.

A doctor at the hospital told Powell that he didn't think her brother would "make it" on the day he was admitted, but said the hospital would do tests on him, the suit says.

Another hospital employee told Powell about two days later that the man had suffered severe brain damage from a drug overdose, according to the complaint. She was also told he would be moved into a hospice in-patient unit, the suit says.

Powell stayed at the man's bedside believing he was her incapacitated brother for nearly two weeks until July 29, when she authorized the hospital to pull his life support, the suit says.

One of Frederick Williams' daughters even came to New York from Virginia to say goodbye before the man's death, according to the Post. But her dad was actually in jail on Rikers Island because of a July 1 arrest, the Post reported.

"He was saying, ‘You were going to kill me?’" Powell told the Post. "I explained to him, once you’re brain-dead, there is nothing to do."

It wasn't until about Aug. 16 that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner finally identified the dead man's body as Freddy Clarence Williams's, according to the lawsuit.

Powell has suffered "severe emotional harm and injuries" resulting from the"misinformation and negligent conduct" of the hospital and the employees, the complaint says.

Powell's actual brother has reportedly forgiven his sister for the decision she made.

"The doctors told her they couldn’t do anything," Williams told the Post. "I’m not mad at her."

(Lead image: St. Barnabas Hospital is seen in The Bronx. Image from Google Maps)