A jaw-dropping lawsuit filed last week in San Francisco Superior Court alleges an emergency room doctor abandoned his attempts to resuscitate a patient from cardiac arrest to instead pocket the dead man's valuable Rolex wristwatch.
The suit, filed by the adult children of Jerry Keith Kubena, Sr., alleges that Dr. Cleveland James Enmon on June 1 "formed the intent" to swipe the Rolex from Kubena's wrist while treating the man at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton (as this is a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West, the lawsuit was filed here).
After Kubena went into cardiac arrest, "Defendant Enmon assumed responsibility for resuscitating descendant [Kubena]," reads the suit. "Once defendant Enmon formed the intent to steal decedent's watch, he abandoned his efforts to resuscitate decedent, leaving decedent to die so that he would not be around to reclaim his watch."
According to the suit, Enmon's alleged theft was as clumsily executed as it was heartless:
The nursing staff assisting Enmon soon noticed that Kubena's flashy timepiece was missing; "Where is the wristwatch?" the suit quotes one as uttering. Two more nurses allegedly noticed a wristwatch-shaped bulge in the doctor's pocket. Security was called to investigate the disappearance. Defying security's orders, the lawsuit notes Enmon walked out of the operating room and into the parking lot -- a move caught on hospital security cameras. |
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