By John Davis, Sarasota Herald Tribune
Original publication date: July 2, 2011

North Port, Fla.:  The family of a woman who died after a botched emergency call is suing North Port for negligence.

Sharon Villatoro, 42, died in the emergency room of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s North Port branch two years ago. Her emergency call became a source of embarrassment for the city after it came to light that an officer skipped Villatoro’s emergency call to watch a youth soccer game.

Now, Villatoro’s sister, Laura McCabe, is suing the city for negligence. The complaint, filed Friday, cites the officer’s use of city equipment for his personal errand, and breach of the city’s “nondelegable duty of reasonable care to respond to emergency calls.”

On November 21, 2009, Villatoro, 42, called 911 complaining of difficulty breathing. Part of the crew sent to save her was not at the North Port Boulevard fire station where it was supposed be, but instead was attending a youth soccer match three miles away with a North Port ladder truck. Lt. Robert Combs, the ranking officer, stayed at the game, while two other firefighters took the truck to the call.

Villatoro went into cardiac arrest while being moved to a stretcher and was later pronounced dead at the North Port emergency room.

Combs and another firefighter, Frank Bellina, lost their jobs because of the incident.

An internal investigation found that enough emergency medical workers were on hand to treat Villatoro. The fire truck from the soccer game was left behind at Villatoro’s house because no one was available to drive it. Bellina reportedly called Combs from Villatoro’s ambulance, while she was being treated, to talk about the truck being left behind. Combs, the investigation found, then tried to intimidate firefighters under his supervision, telling them to keep the incident “in house.”

The case is in its early stages and could take months or years to resolve, but already McCabe’s lawyer, Bill Partridge, has paid a high price for information from North Port. North Port has charged his client $3,820 for public records in the case, an expense the Sarasota attorney said “flabbergasted” him when he saw the bill.

The records charge is surprising given that North Port has repeatedly discounted public records work when the bills reached into the thousands. City Attorney Rob Robinson is empowered to arbitrarily reduce charges to keep them “reasonable.” The city, for example, offered home improvement giant Lowe’s a $20,000 discount in 2009 after a voluminous request, and the Herald-Tribune received an unsolicited discount of more than $3,000 on similar charges for access to files. But Villatoro’s family was offered no reduction.

The city declined to comment on the case or the records charges.

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