Denis Johnson turns away from an overhead screen displaying a photograph of her dead daughter Erika Huff, 41. Closing arguments were Wednesday. The case is in the jury's hands.

YOUNGSTOWN — It’s now up to a jury to decide if ambulance company employees miscarried their duties the night a woman was killed and another was brutally beaten in a home where a medical alert device was pressed.

Attorneys on Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court gave closing statements to the jury. Jurors have heard over the past week that emergency medical technicians were dispatched to the house without all available information and left the scene on the word of the murderer that everything was OK.

Attorney David Engler is representing the estate and family of Erika Huff, 41, who was strangled and beaten to death Nov. 6, 2015; and her mother, Denise Johnson, 71, who was brutally beaten the same day by Lance Hundley. Hundley was sentenced to death in 2018 on charges of aggravated murder, attempted murder, felonious assault and two counts of aggravated arson.

Johnson, who has never looked at crime scene photos from that night, turned her head and hung it low to avoid looking at an overhead projection of a photo showing Huff dead on her bedroom floor.

Cleveland medical malpractice attorney Don Switzer is representing American Medical Response, the nationwide ambulance and EMT company that operated and still operates a contract for the city of Youngstown’s ambulance services.

Engler accuses the company of having an “astounding” lack of interest in accountability for the actions of its employees. He argues the AMR dispatcher did not do his job by not sharing information with EMTs that a Youngstown dispatcher shared that may have led EMTs to spend more time at the scene — ensuring the woman who might have pressed the button was OK. And the EMTs did not stay at the scene long enough, 94 seconds, to really assess the scenario.

“This is an act of omission. When people fail to do things, it sets in motion a chain of events leading to the death of Erika and the beating of Johnson,” Engler said.

The EMTs and dispatchers violated a standard of care any other dispatcher or EMT would have or should have abided to, Engler argued.

Switzer contends the sole man responsible for Huff’s death and Johnson’s lasting neurological injuries is on death row.

“This was clearly an unfortunate outcome,” Switzer said. “But there is only one person responsible for that, and that is Lance Hundley. He is 100 percent responsible.”

The EMTs had a responsibility to arrive quickly to the scene, which they did, Switzer argued. But the EMTs had no reason to believe or suspect Hundley was lying when he told the two women everything was alright and there was no reason to stick around longer because there were no calls for help from inside the house, no signs of distress and no report from Huff she was being harmed by the man who is the uncle of her daughter, now 9.

Guardian Medical Alert device called Johnson when it couldn’t get Huff to respond to a phone call or a two-way intercom. Huff had multiple sclerosis and could not walk. Johnson is estimated to have arrived four to nine minutes after EMTs left, even though she arrived to let them in the house, thinking Huff wouldn’t be able to.

It is unclear if the AMR dispatcher told the EMTs that Johnson was on her way, but he did not tell them the device was registered to Huff, a 41-year-old woman who could not walk, which a Youngstown dispatcher told the AMR dispatcher.

The dispatcher failed in his duties, Engler argues, and EMTs could have done more to ensure the person who might have pressed the device was really OK.

“If they had done their jobs, none of this would have happened,” Engler said.

But Switzer said, medical alert devices are often pressed by accident, and it isn’t unusual for someone to apologize and tell responding EMTs it was an accident.

“It was appropriate and applied the standard of care,” Switzer said. “Why would anyone think a criminal was going to answer the door? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Engler argued the company has shown a pattern of unaccountability. Audio and texts sent between the AMR dispatcher and AMR EMTs weren’t preserved, and the company’s leadership wasn’t made aware of the issue until the civil case.

Switzer said the police investigating the case never asked for the audio or texts in the murder investigation, and over time, the audio was lost and texts routinely deleted.

The two also volleyed over if Huff pressed the button herself and whether she was still alive when EMTs arrived.

Engler contends she pressed the button herself when Hundley scared her, kept quiet out of fear when the EMTs were there and then was killed when Hundley was engulfed in a violent rage as a result of her call for help.

It must have been like a horror film, for Huff to be lying there desperately hoping for help, hearing the arrival of the lights and sirens, only to hear them leave, Engler said.

There is no evidence Huff pressed the button or was alive when EMTs arrived, Switzer said.

Switzer argues the device may have been pressed accidentally, possibly when Hundley was beating and strangling her to death.

If a jury finds in favor of the plaintiffs, it will determine damages. Engler is asking for about $10 million for Huff’s death and about $5 million for Johnson.

rfox@tribtoday.com