Opening Salvo Fired in Shoemaker Case

One of the attorneys for quadriplegic Bill Shoemaker told a jury Monday that his client might still have the use of his hands and the upper part of his body but for negligence and a breach of the standard of care by a hospital and seven doctors in the hours after an automobile accident six years ago.

In his opening statement in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Neil Papiano, who represents Shoemaker, said that in treating the Hall of Fame jockey, the doctors aggravated his injuries at the hospital and weren’t aware that he had broken his neck until about seven hours after his arrival.

“Mr. Shoemaker wasn’t properly treated and his problems weren’t recognized,” Papiano said. “This caused further injury until he was in the condition you see him today.”

The 4-foot, 11-inch Shoemaker, who had begun a training career less than a year before his Ford Bronco II left Route 30 and rolled over three or four times down a 30-foot embankment in San Dimas, sat in his wheelchair not far from Judge Frederick J. Lower Jr., facing the jury from the opposite side of the courtroom. Shoemaker, who continues to train horses, is seeking as much as $50 million in damages from Glendora Community Hospital, seven doctors and a group that provides emergency-room physicians.

In an opening statement on behalf of one of the defendants, Dr. Paul Waters, attorney H. Gilbert Jones, said his client and the other doctors saved Shoemaker’s life.

“That was the real problem confronting these physicians,” Jones said. “That was priority No. 1.”

Jones said that Waters, an anesthesiologist, presumed that Shoemaker had broken his neck and realized that he shouldn’t be moved. Jones said that he will introduce evidence that shows that Shoemaker’s breathing stopped and he turned blue.

At that point, Jones said, Dr. Alfonso Miguel, a general surgeon, said to Waters: “Paul, get a tube down him, he’s dying.”

Jones referred to Shoemaker’s blood-alcohol reading, which he said was .196 when it was first taken at the hospital. The state maximum for driving is .08. Shoemaker, whose blood alcohol later tested at .13, has admitted drinking after a round of golf with friends, but has said that he wasn’t drunk.

Earlier, Papiano had dismissed the drinking factor.

“Conscious, unconscious, dead drunk or otherwise, the X-rays should have told the doctors what was going on,” he said.