A pedestrian who was struck by a car last year while walking on Interstate 10 is suing a Mandeville-area fire protection district, claiming that district paramedics didn’t inform hospital staff about his mental health problems before the hospital released him. Had they done so in a timely manner, the suit claims, Da’Shawn Coats would have been kept in the hospital and wouldn’t have been walking on I-10. Coats, who lived in St. Bernard Parish at the time, had been heading to the north shore on April 28 because his girlfriend’s father died. But he was arrested by Causeway Police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and taken to St. Tammany Parish Jail, the lawsuit says. When he was released from jail the next day, his girlfriend picked him up, but he got out of the vehicle after expressing suicidal thoughts. A fire district ambulance was summoned after Coats was found passed out on a roadside. Coats told paramedics that he had been walking for four hours and had consumed a beer and taken a sedative. Paramedics took him to Slidell Memorial Hospital, but, according to the lawsuit, didn’t inform the staff of his recent release from jail or that he had consumed alcohol and a sedative. Paramedics also failed to provide a report that would have included evidence that Coats was having a mental health crisis. Had they done so, the suit claims, the hospital likely would have sought a coroner’s order to keep Coats hospitalized instead of allowing him to leave against medical advice. Coats walked to I-10, where he was struck by a vehicle after he walked on the highway, the suit says. He was hospitalized for more than a month and had more than a dozen surgeries for injuries that included a broken wrist, leg fractures and a broken jaw.
