Transfusion Refused by Woman Might Have Saved Her, Jurors Told

A devout Jehovah’s Witness probably would have survived being rammed by an alleged drunk driver if she had accepted a blood transfusion, a trauma surgeon testified Wednesday in the vehicular murder trial of Keith Cook.

But Dr. Ross Bremner acknowledged that he could not be certain of the woman’s fate, again stalling attempts by Cook’s defense lawyers to absolve the Azusa man of murder. They have tried to argue that Jadine Russell caused her own death by refusing blood.

Bremner told the jury in Pomona Superior Court that with a transfusion Russell “probably” would have survived the accident last spring that ruptured her spleen and caused massive internal bleeding.

But, Bremner added: “I don’t think anyone could say for certain she would have survived. We don’t know what the long-term outcome would have been.”

The week-old trial of Cook has drawn considerable attention because of the defense’s unusual attempt to use the victim’s religious aversion to a transfusion in an attempt to acquit Cook of murder. His lawyers hope that the 32-year-old auto mechanic will be convicted, at most, of drunk driving and causing an accident with injuries.

Bremner’s appearance came at the close of the prosecution case Wednesday, cutting to the crux of the religious, medical and legal questions at stake the night of March 7.

Russell, 55 and a mother of five, was flown by helicopter to County-USC Medical Center that night, critically injured. Cook, who was allegedly drunk and speeding along a dark Azusa road, rammed Russell’s parked car, which in turn slammed into her and three others.

Bremner, 35, was a chief resident on the hospital’s trauma team, which received Russell in the operating room about 11 p.m.

The woman had lost more than half of her blood, so two bags of O-negative blood immediately were hung beside her bed. But Russell “adamantly” declined to take the blood, even grabbing at the bags as if to pull them down, Bremner testified.

The transfusion never began, even after attending physician William Dougherty explained to Russell that she could die. Bremner said he made a note of the woman’s response: “Patient stated she was aware of this and would rather die rather than be transfused.”

Bremner said the case and Russell’s subsequent death became “a very difficult time for me.”

“I don’t know if I could have saved her life,” Bremner said, “but I know the one product we would have liked to have given her would have been blood.”

Painful memories of the case for Bremner were exacerbated when Cook’s trial opened with dramatic testimony by one of Russell’s daughters. Jennifer Russell accused Bremner of reacting “harshly” to the family’s Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. The younger Russell, 25, said that when the family reiterated its opposition to a transfusion, Bremner responded: “Then you go ahead and kill her.”

On the witness stand, Bremner firmly rebutted that account, saying: “No, I never said that and I never would say that.”

After the doctor’s hour of testimony, one of the victim’s other daughters, Jana, approached him in the hallway. With tears in her eyes, she apologized and said the family now believes that another doctor made the statements.

Jana Russell thanked Bremner for all he had done in trying to save her mother. He responded: “I am so sorry for your family.”

Also outside court, Bremner explained why the hospital staff did not attempt a procedure called auto-transfusion, in which a patient’s own blood is filtered through a device called a “cell saver” and then pumped back into the body. An expert earlier in the trial suggested that the procedure would have helped Jadine Russell’s chances.

Bremner said that the hospital’s policy is not to use the device in abdominal trauma cases. Blood taken from the abdomen can be contaminated by fecal waste, Bremner testified. And Jadine Russell’s blood was so heavily clumped it would have been difficult to salvage, he said.

With the prosecution resting Wednesday, defense attorney Charles Unger is expected to return today to the medical issues in the case. Unger plans to call two medical experts, who he said will testify that Russell’s survival was highly likely until she changed the course of events by declining blood.

Unger also will call a statistician, who he said will testify that the chance is 45 million to 1 of a car colliding with someone who is a Jehovah’s Witness. That information would tend to show that, even if Cook’s behavior caused the accident, he could not have foreseen colliding with someone who would then refuse transfusions and die, Unger said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Larson said he considers such statements prejudicial. He will ask Judge Reginald Yates to bar the statistician’s testimony.