Family Sues St. Joseph Hospital Over Patient’s Death : Litigation: Longtime Salvation Army official strangled on a chest restraining device while hospitalized for a stroke, his children charge. Officials decline comment.

The children of a longtime Salvation Army official sued St. Joseph Hospital on Monday, alleging their father strangled on a chest restraining device while trying to climb out of bed.

The daughter and two sons of Arthur L. Carl Sr. allege in the lawsuit, filed Monday in Orange County Superior Court, that the Orange hospital and its transitional care unit were negligent in treating the 83-year-old stroke patient and tried to cover up the cause of his death.

“This gentleman was a lieutenant colonel in the Salvation Army and had given his whole life to charity work,” said attorney Frank P. Barbaro, who is representing C. Jane Carl, Richard Carl and Arthur Carl Jr. in the lawsuit. “To die like that is really sad.”

Hospital officials declined comment, saying company policy prohibits them from speaking about pending lawsuits. In addition to the hospital and the transitional care unit, the suit names Dr. Richard Dauben and Dr. Jack O. Stewart as defendants.

Carl, a longtime Santa Ana resident, suffered a stroke March 26 and was admitted to the hospital, where he spent several days in the intensive care unit, Barbaro said.

While at the hospital he became agitated and confused, and doctors gave him medication to calm him. They also used chest and ankle restraints to keep him from climbing out of bed, Barbaro said.

About four hours before his death early on March 31, medical officials transferred Carl from the hospital to the transitional care unit, where he was to receive rehabilitative therapy, Barbaro said.

The family alleges in the lawsuit that medical staff in the transitional center stopped giving Carl the medication that would have calmed him down and used only a chest restraining device, known as a Posey vest. The family further alleges that medical staff failed to properly watch Carl, which allowed him the chance to try to climb out of bed, causing him to become tangled in the Posey vest.

Barbaro said a March 31 autopsy report from the Orange County coroner’s office says the cause of Carl’s death was “positional asphyxiation, due to hospital restraint (Posey vest).”

The family, however, alleges in the lawsuit that they were led to believe their father died of “natural consequences” and that he was found dead, “sitting next to the side of the bed with the Posey vest still attached. . . . “

“The family was never told, nor do the medical records reflect, how he really died,” Barbaro said.

The family is seeking an unspecified amount of damages in the case.