Heart ailment caused Mequon surgeon’s death

[Lisa Salberg]

By DAN BENSON
dbenson@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 4, 2008
Mequon - The chief of surgery at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital Ozaukee in Mequon died of a disease that causes a thickening of the heart muscle, Mequon police reported Thursday.

Bradley Mays


Mays

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Bradley Mays, 44, was found dead by his wife Carrie early on July 21 in a bedroom of their Mequon home.

Mequon police Capt. Thomas Buntrock, citing a report from the Kenosha County medical examiner’s office, said Mays died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes an excessive thickening of the heart muscle for no apparent reason.

The thickening can interrupt the flow of blood through the heart, according to the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association’s web site.

The association estimates that as many as 300,000 people in the United States might have the disease.

Buntrock said a toxicology report showed “nothing out of the ordinary” that might have contributed to his death.

Buntrock said the medical examiner’s full report would not be available until next week. Mequon police had interviewed neighbors, friends and family members, generating speculation in the community regarding Mays’ death.

Mequon Police Chief Steve Graff said last month that the investigation was routine for someone with “no obvious signs of medical complications.”

Mays served as chief of surgery at Columbia St. Mary’s in Mequon and as director of the hospital’s Vascular Institute. He also joined a private practice, now part of Madison Medical Affiliates.

A native of Kentucky and the son of a surgeon, May graduated from the University of Louisville medical school and came to Wisconsin as an intern and general surgery resident at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

He also completed a general surgery fellowship in the United Kingdom and a fellowship in vascular surgery at the Medical College.

[Lisa Salberg]

Cause of surgeon's death questioned
By Dan Benson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Nov. 3, 2008

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Bradley Mays, Died in July
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Bradley Mays, Died in July
Close The family of a Mequon surgeon who died in July has sent material related to the case to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's office, citing the opinions of two experts who say the cause of death was misdiagnosed.

"These documents suggest that the death of Dr. Bradley W. Mays was not the result of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy but, rather, asphyxia," Madison attorney Stephen P. Hurley wrote to Deputy Attorney General Kevin Potter on Oct. 27.

Hurley's letter makes reference to prior conversations on the subject with Potter but doesn't call for any specific action. Potter said Monday it would be unlikely that his office would become involved without being asked by Ozaukee County District Attorney Sandy Williams.

Williams did not return a call Monday.

Mays, the 44-year-old chief of surgery at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital Ozaukee in Mequon, was found dead in bed by his wife July 21.

After an autopsy, Kenosha County Medical Examiner Mary Mainland reported that Mays died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes a thickening of the heart muscle.

Two doctors who reviewed the case for the Mays family dispute that conclusion.

In her report, Mainland says Mays' heart was "of normal size and thickness."

That conclusion "is in no way diagnostic or even consistent with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Not even close," Barry Maron, director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, wrote in an Oct. 22 letter to Hurley.

Maron said the hearts of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy victims are usually almost double their normal size.

Maron's letter notes that cells of the heart wall seem to be "in disarray," consistent with the disease, but the situation has never been observed apart from an enlarging of the heart. "Therefore, with this suspicious confluence of findings, Dr. Mays is either a 'first' or this is a very misleading autopsy report, which is almost certainly incorrect," Maron wrote.

Maron's letter says he has participated in the autopsies of about 2,000 athletes who have died from the disease. He is recognized by the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association as one of the world's leading experts in the disease, according to the association's Web site.

In an Oct. 27 letter to Hurley, Barbara Weakley-Jones, a forensic pathologist and a medical examiner for 27 years in Kentucky who also examined Mainland's records, said Mays had an accumulation of fluid in his lungs, "which does not suggest a sudden cardiac arrhythmia but does suggest a possible drug-related death or asphyxial type death."

Maron also mentioned a "white froth" in Mays' lungs and throat that would be inconsistent with a death caused by the heart condition.

"Individuals who die suddenly of (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) do so virtually instantaneously of an arrhythmia. . . . (Froth) is a finding that implies progressive heart failure which would necessarily have played out over an extended period of time," Maron wrote.

Truman Mays, Bradley Mays' brother, said he and his family hope they can "get to the truth of what happened and what killed my brother. I've been waiting five months for a true cause of death, and I'm getting a little frustrated."

Mays' widow, Carrie Mays, declined to comment.

Mequon police interviewed 26 friends, neighbors and family members as part of the investigation, which they closed in early September after Mainland determined a cause of death.

Mainland, now employed in the Hillsborough County medical examiner's office in Tampa, Fla., did not return a phone call seeking comment.