Suit Filed in ‘Poltergeist’ Actress’ Death

Heather O’Rourke, the young actress sucked into a supernatural vacuum in the “Poltergeist” movies, died because the doctors who treated her throughout her childhood failed to diagnose a longstanding small-bowel obstruction, according to a wrongful-death suit filed Wednesday by a law firm representing the girl’s mother.

The 12-year-old actress, who warned “They’re heeere!” in “Poltergeist” and “They’re baaack!” in the sequel, “Poltergeist II,” died Feb. 1 on the operating table at Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

At the time, hospital officials said her death was caused by septic shock leading to cardiac arrest. Officials explained that septic shock was brought on by congenital stenosis of the intestine, a bowel blockage the girl evidently had since birth.

The suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court against Kaiser Foundation Hospital of San Diego and Southern California Permanente Medical Group on behalf of Kathleen O’Rourke Peel of Lakeside, Heather’s mother and administrator of her estate. It does not specify damages.

Children’s Hospital was not included as a defendant.

Spokesmen for the Kaiser hospital and medical group declined to comment on the charges.

“We have reviewed the case extensively, and we are convinced that the care we provided was appropriate,” a Kaiser Permanente spokesman said.

Sanford M. Gage, the family’s attorney, said that, if the Kaiser doctors who treated Heather from birth had properly diagnosed the bowel obstruction, rather than simply prescribed medication for an intestinal inflammation, they could have performed a simple operation “that would have cured her.”

The girl exhibited flu symptoms on Jan. 31. The next day her condition worsened, and she was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, then flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital, where exploratory bowel surgery was performed.

The “Poltergeist” films, first released in 1982, told the story of a middle-class American family whose young daughter begins communing with creatures she sees on her television screen.

Besides her “Poltergeist” roles, Heather was a regular on the TV series “Happy Days,” a recurring character on “Webster” and “Still the Beaver,” and one of the stars in an ABC miniseries on teen-age suicide called “Surviving.”