NASHUA – When Michael Lockwood went to a local walk-in clinic in August 2013 seeking help for a very painful, swollen knee, the physician he saw, Dr. Abraham Jacob, spent 40 minutes trying to persuade Lockwood to undergo blood tests and X-rays, Jacob said in court Tuesday.

While Lockwood, who was accompanied by his wife, Karen, agreed to have blood drawn, he declined the X-rays, according to Jacob’s testimony, which followed the attorneys’ opening statements on the first day of the wrongful death trial stemming from the lawsuit Karen Lockwood filed in 2016 against Jacob and Southern New Hampshire Health.

Michael Lockwood was 55 when he died unexpectedly on Aug. 31, 2013, just a day after he was seen at the walk-in clinic. The cause of death was septic shock, which neither side disputes, according to the suit.

Rather, it is the paper trail documenting the sequence of events in the 24 hours leading up to Lockwood’s death that is central to the trial, which is expected to last into early next week.

Testimony was scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. today.

Jacob, according to the defense, acted within the parameters of the standard of care, the benchmark that gauges medical practioners’ actions and decisions.

When he went to the clinic, Lockwood “showed no symptoms of sepsis … he had a sore knee – that’s what Dr. Jacob treated him for,” defense attorney Sean Capliss told the jury in his opening

statement.

“The evidence will show Dr. Jacob was very careful, very thorough,” Capliss added.

But attorney Benjamin Gideon, lead counsel for Karen Lockwood, told jurors the account of Lockwood’s visit that Jacob gave during a series of depositions in 2017 is at odds with the reports he generated the day he treated Lockwood.

The most crucial evidence, according to Gideon, stems from the results of one of the five separate blood tests Lockwood underwent that day.

While the first four tests came back normal, except for a kidney-related condition that, Gideon said, wasn’t a life-threatening emergency, the results of the fifth test were

“alarming.”

The results “showed a life-threatening condition,” Gideon said, but alleged Jacob “didn’t look at the results” promptly and failed to communicate the information to the

Lockwoods.

While Jacob did call the Lockwoods, Gideon said, and spoke with each of them in back-to-back calls, he allegedly didn’t express any urgency.

But Jacob, according to the suit, claims that while speaking with Karen Lockwood, he warned her that her husband had a life-threatening bloodstream infection, and needed emergency care.

But Lockwood, who is expected to testify at some point during the trial, denies Jacob delivered that

warning.

At about 2 a.m. Aug. 31, several hours after they spoke, according to Gideon, Karen Lockwood discovered her husband’s breathing had become irregular and was getting worse.

She called an ambulance, which took her husband to Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, Gideon said. There, “things got worse … he goes into septic shock. His organs were shutting down … they weren’t able to do anything,” Gideon said, adding that Michael Lockwood died the following day.

Had Jacob “communicated to the Lockwoods those results,” Gideon said, referring to the fifth blood test, “he would have been in the hospital nine hours earlier, hooked up to IVs.

“Had he been in the hospital when he should have been, Michael Lockwood would almost certainly be alive today.”

The first witness to take the stand was Jacob, who was called by the plaintiffs as the afternoon session got underway.

He told Gideon about the 40 minutes it took for him to persuade Lockwood to undergo testing, then, when Jacob recommended Lockwood go to a hospital emergency department, “he refused, outright.”

Jacob testified he also suggested that Lockwood see a sports medicine provider for treatment of his knee aliment, and if he “was willing to go, I would have made an appointment for him. But he declined,” Jacob said.

Capliss, meanwhile, said that when Lockwood went home from the clinic, Jacob “had no knowledge at that time there was something in Mr. Lockwood’s blood,” he said, referring to the infection that led to sepsis.

Capliss said that by then, Lockwood “was on a path where antibiotics wouldn’t have made a difference. Not only did he have sepsis, he was in kidney failure … it was the combination of the two” that led to Lockwood’s death, Capliss said.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-1256, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.