A couple, Timothy and Linda Wratten, filed a negligence lawsuit against Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, California, for damaging the stem cells of their 7-year-old son identified as E.F. They brought the action before Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, August 19th.

Court documents show that the plaintiffs allege that the hospital’s freezer damaged the stem cells after a malfunction in September 2019. Timothy and Linda’s son suffer from an aggressive form of cancer, neuroblastoma, and they said they fear for his life as he needs the stem cell transplant to survive.

According to the lawsuit, E.F. got diagnosed with the ailment in 2014, and it had spread throughout his body before the doctors discovered it. Since then, the child has undergone a series of treatments and had surgery to remove a brain tumor.

He was hospitalized for nearly a month and relapsed three times. The suit claims that the defendant stored the stem cells in a freezer nearly twenty decades past its life expectancy and intentionally disabled the alarm system that monitors the fridge’s temperature, especially if it rises to unsafe levels.

Timothy and Linda believe that the situation was completely avoidable if CHLA did its due diligence. They noted that 56 children had the rug pulled from under them by the institution that was supposed to help them.

They alleged negligence on the part of the hospital, fraudulent concealment, and breach of contract. In a statement released on Wednesday, CHLA apologized to the families affected, stating that they are working towards a positive outcome for everyone involved.

Disclaimer: The Accident News article you just read includes information obtained from numerous sources. These sources include, but are not limited to, websites and press releases from law enforcement, the county coroner, fire departments, and other news outlets. While we strive to provide readers with the most accurate information, sometimes the information received is not entirely accurate. For complete details, please refer to an official police report.

The articles published contain sensitive subject matter that may be hard to read by some. We understand that losing a loved one is hard and devastating. Accident News’s decision to share the stories is to help others who may be facing the same situations by providing appropriate resources to the general public.

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