On Dec. 30, 2011, plaintiffs’ decedent, a 69-year-old woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was being cared for by a nurse from a home health services company since the decedent was bedridden and ventilator dependent. However, when the company’s nurse changed the water trap on the ventilator machine at the decedent’s home, the nurse did not put it back correctly. As a result, the decedent was prevented from receiving oxygen from the ventilator and her oxygen saturation level dropped from 98 percent to critical levels below 85 percent. The company’s nurse then waited 15 minutes before calling 911 and did not administer oxygen to the decedent via an Ambu bag during those 15 minutes. By the time paramedics brought the decedent to Methodist Hospital, she was in a coma. Due to the prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain, she developed anoxic encephalopathy/brain damage. As a result, the decedent never regained consciousness and died on Jan. 6, 2012. The decedent’s surviving daughter, acting individually and on behalf of her mother’s estate, sued the home health services company. The daughter alleged that the company was liable for the nurse’s negligent treatment of her mother, causing her mother’s wrongful death. The California Department of Public Health found that the home health services company failed to provide emergent care to address the decedent’s respiratory distress. An investigation further revealed that the company had assigned nurses to ventilator-dependent patients when those nurses were not trained in ventilator care. Thus, the California Department of Public Health issued a Deficiency for Immediate Jeopardy to the home health services company. The decedent’s daughter claimed that despite complaints from patients on the nurses’ lack of ventilator experience, the home health services company continued to assign these nurses to ventilator-dependent patients., Due to a prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain for approximately 20 minutes, the decedent developed anoxic encephalopathy/brain damage and went into a coma. She subsequently died on Jan. 6, 2012. She was 69 and was survived by her daughter. The decedent’s daughter sought recovery of $44,549.84, which was the amount of the decedent’s paid medical costs, plus an unspecified amount of damages for her mother’s wrongful death.