North Huntingdon family sues UPMC Children's over treatment of son, mother

A North Huntingdon woman is suing UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, claiming doctors performed unnecessary surgery on her son and staff concocted criminal allegations against her when she complained about the boy’s treatment.

The woman, Dawn Lewandowski, was found not guilty of disorderly conduct and harassment Monday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. Later that day, she and numerous family members sued the hospital and several officials.

Their claims include false report of child abuse; interference with parental rights; medical kidnapping and false imprisonment; negligence; malicious prosecution/abuse of process; fraud; civil conspiracy; corporate negligence; and defamation. The family alleges Lewandowski’s son was overmedicated and subjected to unnecessary medical procedures.

“Medical kidnapping” can be defined as removing a child from a family’s care if they disagree with treatment prescribed by a hospital and then forcing the child to undergo the treatment against the family’s wishes.

A top UPMC spokesman said Wednesday he was not familiar with the case.

According to the complaint filed by attorney James Welsh, the woman’s son, identified as C.L. because he is a minor, shot himself in the face with a shotgun at the family’s home Dec. 25.

The Lewandowski family has been open about C.L.’s medical treatment and the ongoing court battles, documenting them on social media.

The 15-year-old boy almost died and was hospitalized at Children’s until August. Although his mother spent every day there with him for months, the complaint alleges that, when she began to complain in February about some of the care he was receiving, the staff began to retaliate against her.

Lewandowski claims she found a nurse giving her son the wrong medication and caught patient care monitors sleeping instead of observing him.

She also claims her son had a high fever and an infection in his mouth from a lack of care that traveled to his brain and required emergency brain surgery.

“Every time mom made a complaint, she was met with retaliation and false statements that she was threatening staff,” the lawsuit said.

Lewandowski claims hospital staff filed multiple false reports against her with ChildLine, the state’s child abuse hotline, that were unfounded.

On May 4, UPMC’s police force charged Lewandowski with simple assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said she became frustrated with her son and smacked his legs and hit him several times in the chest, telling him ‘to go to hell,’” according to the criminal complaint.

A patient care technician told police that night that Lewandowski’s son yelled “stop” repeatedly, and his mother then punched him in the groin and later put him in a choke hold as she attempted to walk him to the bathroom.

Lewandowski was banned from visiting her son at the hospital after that, and Children’s filed a private dependency petition in Allegheny County family court.

The judge appointed a medical decision maker to help guide the teen’s care. That person gave permission to the hospital to complete a two-day, 20-hour brain surgery to repair a cerebral spinal fluid leak over the objections of the family, who claimed there was no leak, the lawsuit said.

No medical reports or hospital paperwork related to the surgery were contained in the lawsuit.

Lewandowski was permitted a 30-minute supervised visit May 20, the day before the operation. Police said Lewandowski leaned in close to her son as her time was up and told him, “‘Tell these people that I don’t beat you.’”

Then, police said, Lewandowski spoke with her son on the phone twice more, despite court orders forbidding her from doing so.

On June 7, UPMC police charged her with intimidation.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office withdrew that charge prior to trial Monday. They also reduced the misdemeanor counts of endangering and simple assault to summary counts of harassment and disorderly conduct.

Following a bench trial Monday, Judge Kevin G. Sasinoski found Lewandowski not guilty.

“Our office prosecutes charges which we believe are supported by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt,” the DA’s office said Wednesday in a statement. “Ultimately, the fact finder renders the final decision. We respect the fact finder’s decision.”

The lawsuit alleges that, after Lewandowski’s arrest, the family sought to have her son either discharged or transferred to another facility, but Children’s refused.

“He was being provided no life-sustaining treatment,” the lawsuit said. The hospital, according to the suit, held the boy “against his wishes and against his parents’ wishes with no valid reason.”

The boy was discharged from the hospital in August and, his family said, continues to recover.

The lawsuit names as defendants the hospital; the UPMC police department; Andrew Schurman, the chief of that department; Diane Hupp, the president of Children’s; Jamie Mohr, an administrator there; and Dr. Andrew Buchert, the medical director.

The family is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.