TACOMA — An infection that led to the amputation of a Jefferson County jail inmate’s little finger was rare and hardly seen, a Seattle infection specialist testified Tuesday.
Although Dr. David Spach did not directly treat 29-year-old Zachary Barbee of Port Townsend when Barbee was taken to Harborview Medical Center for the amputation in fall 2004, Spach said he examined medical records leading up to the amputation.
Spach is a specialist at Harborview, and he took the witness stand Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, where Barbee is suing Jefferson County and the jail superintendent in a civil action.
Spach testified the records indicated that the infection was misdiagnosed by the jail’s regular nurse practitioner as well as an emergency room physician who saw Barbee at Jefferson Healthcare Hospital in Port Townsend.
“In my experience, this is a very unusual infection for any general practitioner to see,” said Spach.
“That’s one of the unfortunate things here that it was a very unusual infection and a very uncommon infection.
“My approach two years ago would be different than it is now. Practices have changed with infections between 2004 and now.”
$10 million lawsuit
The infection that caused the amputation and subsequently resulted in the $10 million lawsuit against the county and Jail Superintendent Steve Richmond for denying medical care to Barbee during his 3½ days in jail is known as methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
When Barbee’s attorney, Edwin Budge, cross-examined Spach, he made it clear that about 62 hours had passed since Barbee first complained of pain in his finger before he was taken to a hospital.
Barbee submitted at least three medical request forms, one reading, “I need to go to a hospital,” Budge said.
Spach said he thought the medical practitioner for the jail, Ken Brown, who saw Barbee the morning of Oct. 2 — about 40 hours after Barbee first complained about his finger — acted appropriately in prescribing an antibiotic and not sending Barbee to the hospital.
The antibiotic, called Keflex, proved useless against the rare infection.
Erik Heipt, Barbee’s co-attorney, said the fact that the infection was rare and misdiagnosed is not the issue. Instead, if Barbee would have been taken to a hospital or seen by a medical professional when he first asked to, it would have been determined earlier that Keflex didn’t work and Barbee’s finger could have been saved.
“Any sixth-grader would have known that he had an infection,” said Heipt.