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Off Beat: Lathim’s 2012 death inspires California ICU effort

By Patty Hastings, Columbian Social Services, Demographics, Faith
Published: November 3, 2014, 12:00am

Two years after her death, Mandy Lathim is still making a difference. The 18-year-old Mountain View High School graduate was critically injured in a crash during a summer road trip to California and died on July 18, 2012.

A Columbian article published in March followed her living legacy, which includes local food pantries and a scholarship in her name.

And now a neurological intensive care unit is being started at the hospital where she was treated.

Dr. Amjad Mustafa, the first doctor to care for Lathim at Mercy Medical Center in Redding, Calif., said the whole staff had a difficult time with her death. Even now, it’s difficult to talk about her case.

“That had a big impact on me, and I know it had a big impact on the staff,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who was involved who forgot it, and I don’t think they will.”

Lathim arrived at the hospital with a severe brain injury. She never had the chance to receive specialized neurocritical care because Mercy doesn’t offer it, and the closest unit is about 150 miles away.

“She was too sick. She wouldn’t have survived a transport,” Mustafa said.

It got him thinking about the neurocritical care gap along the West Coast. Neuro ICUs are typically located in big cities, but that can cover a lot of distance. Nearly 600 miles separate the units in Portland and Sacramento, Calif.

Neurological issues are often time-sensitive, he said, and there is risk involved in transporting patients to hospitals that offer specialized care.

“These are the things that drive you: patients. Sometimes it’s the patients who live, sometimes it’s the patients who didn’t.”

Lathim was eventually transferred to a different Redding hospital, where she was taken off life support. Her organs and tissue were donated.

Mercy Medical Center is in a strategic spot along the Interstate 5 corridor. It already offers more services than usual for a city of 90,000 and treats traumatic brain injuries, he said.

Mustafa contacted Lathim’s mother, Denise Ellis, about how Lathim sparked his plans to open a neurological ICU.

“It was just so powerful,” Ellis said. “That’s just not what I would expect — for nurses and doctors to follow a case from two years ago.”

She recalls Mustafa as her daughter’s biggest advocate. Much of her experience at Mercy is a blur, but she remembers standing outside her daughter’s hospital room with the doctor.

The first step

Mustafa has already gotten his neurocritical care certification, but, he said, “This is just the start.”

It’ll take specialized (and expensive) technology. In the next year or so, the hospital aims to train 80 nurses to use that technology.

When the neurological ICU is set up — in the next few years, Mustafa hopes — the hospital will be able to do advanced stroke interventions and treat acute brain injuries it couldn’t fully address before.

All in memory of Mandy Lathim.

Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.

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Columbian Social Services, Demographics, Faith