John Ritter's "Code Blue"
John Ritter's acting wife had been around Hollywood long enough to pick up medical lingo. "Code blue," she knew, wasn't good.
So went the testimony Monday of Amy Yasbeck as the Ritter family's wrongful-death lawsuit against two doctors continued.
Ritter's ex-wife, Nancy Ritter, also testified in the Glendale, California, courtroom.
Dressed in black, an oft-tearful Yasbeck told jurors of seeing her scared, ill husband alive for the last time as he was wheeled away for an angiogram test on Sept. 11, 2003. As he was taken away, Yasbeck said, per reports, Ritter signaled that he loved her.
"He went around the corner, and that's the last time I saw him," Yasbeck said, per the Associated Press.
Later, Yasbeck said, she heard a cry of "code blue" from the emergency room, and knew something was up. Something bad. Just like on the ER she had once auditioned for, according to the AP.
Ritter died that night of a torn aorta at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, the Burbank, California, hospital located across the street from the then-set of his ABC sitcom, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. The lawsuit by Yasbeck and Ritter's four children contends, in part, that the cardiologist who treated Ritter at Providence Saint Joseph misdiagnosed, and mistreated, the actor for a heart attack.
Even Ritter had misgivings about Dr. Joseph Lee's recommendation of an angiogram, Yasbeck said Monday.
"John said, 'Can I get a second opinion?' " Yasbeck testified.
But according to Yasbeck, Dr. Lee told Ritter there wasn't time: "You're in the middle of a heart attack."
Yasbeck's second day on the stand also consisted of showing off pictures of her and Ritter's child, Stella, who turned five the day of the Ritter's death.
"Every day she wakes up, and there's a new way to miss her father," Yasbeck said, per the AP. "I can't make up for that. It's a new road to face every day."
Ritter, Yasbeck said, was "so freaking wise" about children.
According to Los Angeles' KABC-TV, Yasbeck also spoke of how Ritter was beloved by his coworkers and his public.
Nancy Ritter, who was married to Ritter from 1977 to 1996, testified that Ritter was always mindful of his heart because his own father, singing cowboy Tex Ritter, had died of a heart attack at age 68. She said that while they were married he underwent a body scan, but reported no ominous findings.
Last week, jurors heard from Dr. Matthew Lotysch, a radiologist who performed a later body scan on Ritter in 2001. Lotysch said he saw no signs of an enlarged heart, as charged by the Ritter family, and advised Ritter to follow up with a doctor about possible heart disease.
Lotysch and Lee are being sued by Yasbeck and the Ritter children for $67 million.
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