Jan 24, 2014 1 min read

The widow of an Eighty Four man was awarded $800,000 Tuesday by Allegheny County jurors who determined a lung doctor was responsible for her husband’s death.

Filing suit over the March 7, 2008, death of Robert Cole was Judith Cole, 66.

The plaintiff’s attorney, John Perkosky, described 63-year-old Robert Cole as “a relatively healthy, active gentleman” who retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for whom he had been a landscape architect.

Cole underwent a cardiac procedure and was hospitalized overnight. The next week, he experienced persistent coughing and shortness of breath. Cole’s doctor told him he needed treatment, so he went to St. Clair Hospital where, on the third day after his admission, Dr. David Celko, a lung specialist, ordered a test known as a bronchoscopy but did not order monitoring as a followup.

A few hours after the test, a nurse found Cole in his room gasping for air. He died that afternoon.

Perkosky said Robert Cole’s cause of death was respiratory distress, an outcome that he maintained the doctor could have prevented. Other defendants in the case were dismissed before the start of the recent jury trial, at which Judge Robert J. Colville presided.