Westport Man Sues Norwalk Hospital, Claims Cancer Treatment Error

WESTPORT, CT — Robert "Bob" McCurdy, a former college basketball star from the 1970s who lives in Westport, is dying of late-stage cancer due to the negligence of Norwalk Hospital when staff gave him the wrong amount of chemotherapy medicine, his attorneys claim.

In a lawsuit filed this week in Stamford Superior Court, McCurdy's legal team from Silver Golub & Teitell LLP claim their client was given only 25 percent of the dosage he was supposed to receive of the drugs Fluorouracil and Mitomycin to treat his anal cancer.

McCurdy had been prescribed the drugs by Daniel Boxer, MD, who is also named in the lawsuit with the hospital's Whittingham Cancer Center. But McCurdy's attorneys claim that neither Boxer, multiple nurses, pharmacists and an oncologist, caught the under-dosage error. And by receiving only a quarter of the amount of the drugs he was supposed to receive, McCurdy's cancer spread and will kill him, the lawsuit claims.

"Sadly, we cannot change what happened to Bob, but we can hope that this lawsuit will help make the public aware of the potential dangers of medical negligence and faulty hospital pharmacy systems," said one of McCurdy's attorneys, Peter M. Dreyer. "Patients seek treatment at Norwalk Hospital's Whittingham Cancer Center because it has promoted itself as an affiliate of Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the implication to the public is that they provide the same preeminent cancer treatment as MSK. However, despite this advertised relationship, the cancer care Mr. McCurdy received at Whittingham was poor and will cost him his life."

Patch reached out to Nuvance Health, which owns Norwalk Hospital, for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply. A spokesperson for the hospital declined to comment on the case to the Connecticut Post.

McCurdy's medical situation is exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, because he is now immunocompromised and cannot see his primary oncologist in New York City, according to his attorneys.

He was star basketball player at the University of Richmond from 1973 to 1975, where he was an All-American and the nation's leading scorer during his senior season of 1974-1975, averaging 32.9 points per game, according to his attorneys.

After college, McCurdy embarked on a successful, decades-long career in the radio industry, most recently holding a position as Vice President of Corporate Sales at Beasley Media Group.