-- December 1986. New York City. A patient at Montefiore Medical Center could have died when his tracheal breathing tube fell out. Reason: no one on the understaffed night shift heard the respirator alarm go off.
-- February 1987. Los Angeles. Six days after being released from the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center, a 39-year-old woman dies from complications suffered in a hospital-bed fire. Her family's contention: harried nurses discovered the accident only after she had suffered burns on 40% of her body.
-- January 1988. Louisville. For a time, by astonishing coincidence, none of the city's eleven...