Tyra Hunter

Who was Tyra Hunter?

Tyra Hunter was an African-American pre-operative transsexual woman who died after being injured as a passenger in a car accident and being refused emergency medical care. Emergency medical technicians at the scene of the accident uttered derogatory epithets and withdrew medical care after discovering that she had male genitalia, and ER staff at DC General Hospital subsequently provided dilatory and inadequate care.

On December 11, 1998, a jury awarded Hunter's mother, Margie, $2.9 million after finding the District of Columbia, through its employees in the D.C. Fire Department and doctors at D.C. General, liable under the D.C. Human Rights Act and for negligence and medical malpractice for causing Tyra's death. While $600,000 of the amount was awarded for damages attributable to violations of the D.C. Human Rights Act associated with the withdrawal of medical care at the accident scene and openly denigrating Tyra with epithets, a further $1.5 million was awarded to her mother for Tyra's conscious pain and suffering and for economic loss from the wrongful death medical malpractice claim. Doctors at D.C. General failed to diagnose and treat Tyra who died of internal bleeding in the hospital emergency room. Evidence at the trial demonstrated that had Tyra been provided with a blood transfusion and referred to a surgeon, she would have had a 90% chance of surviving. The case against the District of Columbia was tried by Richard F. Silber. Dana Priesing, an observer at the trial, wrote that the evidence supported "the inference that a stereotype affected the treatment Tyra received," and that the "ER staff, as evidenced by their actions, did not consider her life worth saving."