John Ritter's Widow Testifies at Wrongful Death Trial
Amy Yasbeck by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage.com
Amy Yasbeck sobbed through much of her testimony as she told jurors about husband John Ritter's last moments before he was wheeled into surgery for what they
thought was a heart attack, but what turned out to be a shredded aorta. The AP notes that Yasbeck's words were the final testimony heard for the plaintiff's side in the $67 mil wrongful-death suit Ritter's family filed against Dr. Joseph Lee and radiologist Dr. Matthew Lotysch.
Dr. Lee was the physician at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center who told the family that Ritter was in the middle of a heart attack and as such needed an angiogram. Dr. Lotysch had performed a body scan on the actor two years prior to his death and concluded that his aorta was normal.
Along with Yasbeck, Ritter's first wife of 19 years, Nancy, also testified. Ritter had told her his body scan had gone well, but she then offered, "Maybe he was trying to protect me."
Yasbeck's testimony concluded with her account of the unthinkable moment of having to tell her 5-year-old daughter that her father had died. "As much as I lost my husband and the love of my life and my soul mate, what I lost was Stella's father," she said, adding: "Every day [Stella] wakes up and there's a new way to miss her father. I can't make up for that."
- Erin Fox
Do you think the family should be asking for such a large settlement? Or is no amount big enough to take away their pain?
