‘As if my father’s death wasn’t enough.’ Doctor’s family frustrated after he dies abroad.
UPDATE: The investigation into the death of Dr. Joseph Horgan was completed in the British Virgin Islands on Tuesday, Jan. 8, and his body arrived in North Miami on Thursday, Jan. 10, his daughter Lindsey Marcus said.
A memorial service for Dr. Horgan will be at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, at Temple Beth Emet, 4807 S. Flamingo Road, Cooper City. Donations can be made in his memory to The Ehlers-Danlos Society, The American Heart Association, Cancer Research Institute or Doctors Without Borders.
A Pembroke Pines family is mourning the death of the patriarch — respected cardiologist Dr. Joseph Horgan — but the grieving process has been particularly brutal.
He died on Dec. 20, but the Horgan family is still waiting to retrieve his body from the Virgin Islands. That can’t happen until a government-mandated investigation and autopsy is conducted — and because of the holidays that isn’t likely to happen until next week, the Horgans said in a sorrowful Facebook post.
“My father would have been 66 today,” Horgan’s son Jason Horgan, a surgeon at Cooper City’s Leader Animal Specialty Hospital, posted on Facebook Wednesday.
“Words can’t describe the pain and emptiness we feel. He was a lot to a lot of people but he was daddy, dad, pops, old man, and papa to us. He shaped the world we lived in and therefore the people we are today. Clients have said through the years that I have an incredible bedside manner and without thought I have told them, ‘I had the perfect role model. I just watched as a child as my father interacted with everyone, especially his patients. And I mimicked.’”
Royal Virgin Islands police retrieved his body from the waters of the British Virgin Islands and his remains are currently being stored at the morgue in Peebles Hospital.
On Wednesday, the police commissioner for the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force posted a statement on the government’s website detailing the process that must be undertaken before a body can be returned to the United States. Among the requirements: medical records of the deceased from the United States, which will feed into the investigation before the Coroner’s Office performs the autopsy and reports its findings to the Civil Registry of the British Virgin Islands.
“We have sent them the medical records and they confirmed that they received them, Horgan’s daughter Lindsey Marcus told the Miami Herald in an email. “They acted like we knew that we were supposed to send them the records, but we had no idea. They never reached out to us. This whole process is an absolute nightmare.”
According to Jason Horgan, this process could take another week.
“As if my father’s death wasn’t enough and tragic enough, we assumed that they would do the autopsy and his body would be returned to us in a few days, and we learned that, because of certain British Virgin Island laws and because of the holidays, as of right now, it stands that nothing will be done with him until Jan. 3, when the medical examiner is back from vacation,” Horgan told WPLG Local 10.
“We can’t rest knowing that our father is in a cooler somewhere on an island. He’s not even with us,” he told the station.
Marcus thinks it could take even longer to bring their father home.
“They are saying that we might not get his body to the U.S. until January 8th or maybe January 10th,” she said. “This whole thing is just a perfect storm. ... We only want to have closure, but they are making that impossible.”
Horgan told media outlets, including the Sun Sentinel, that his father, who loved sailing, went to Tortola to check on how repairs were going on his 46-foot catamaran, which was damaged during Hurricane Irma in September 2017.
Authorities found the boat after they received a call from other boaters who spotted it circling in the water. Horgan was not aboard. Police found his body in the waters of Buck Island soon after. The family believes Horgan may have slipped, hit his head, and fallen into the water.
Dr. Joseph Horgan, who lived in Davie, had been with the Memorial Healthcare System for decades.
Horgan was an early pioneer in heart catheterization procedures — a process in which dye was injected into the blood vessels surrounding the heart so that doctors could view X-rays to find artery blockages and diagnose coronary artery disease. Over the years, the cardiac catheterization process has evolved.
Horgan taught the catheterization procedure to University of Miami medical students in the early 1980s.
In 1984, Horgan battled the South Broward Hospital District Board to practice heart catheterization at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood after the lab was restricted to a trio of doctors in 1981. At the time, the board recognized Horgan’s qualifications, the Miami Herald reported, but voted to keep the lab open only to its core three doctors for a year.
Horgan had argued that allowing him to use the lab would benefit patients by introducing competition and lower prices for the procedure.
Despite that setback, Horgan would prosper as a cardiologist and treat countless patients over the following 34-plus years.
“I can attest to your dad’s bedside manner as he was my cardiologist,” a patient commented Wednesday on Jason Horgan’s Facebook post. “A compassionate and caring man.” The two had discussed his then coming trip to the islands, the patient shared.
“I hope you get him home. I knew him over 25 + years working with him in the OR then being his patient,” read another post. “He was a great man who loved his family ... he will be missed by all.”
And still another: “Jason, your dad was our friend for about 40 years and our doctor for about 30. He and my husband, Ed, a surgeon, treated countless patients together. He was brilliant, kind, gentle, strong, and had a great laugh. He loved his family fiercely,” the comment read.
Horgan’s survivors include his wife, Tobi Horgan; his children Jason and Brett Horgan, Rachel Lindell and Lindsey Marcus; stepchildren Daniel and BJ Smith; siblings Diana and Robert Horgan, Debbie Gutmann and Donna Baltunado; and 10 grandchildren.
This story was originally published December 27, 2018 at 1:07 PM.
