Lawsuit over teen's death outside Chicago hospital reaches $12.

CHICAGO -- The parent organization for a hospital that declined to help a wounded teenager dying just outside its doors in 1998 has agreed to pay $12.5 million to the victim's family.

The parents of Christopher Sercye and his two brothers will share the money paid by Advocate Health Care to settle a lawsuit filed against the now-closed Ravenswood Hospital.

Fifteen-year-old Christopher Sercye had been playing basketball in the alley behind the hospital when he was shot in the stomach on May 16, 1998. He was carried to within 50 feet of the hospital by friends but sat outside for about 30 minutes until a frustrated police officer brought him inside. He died an hour later.

Workers at Ravenswood refused to leave the building to treat him because they thought it would have violated hospital policy.

"One of the nurses wanted to go out and assist them," said Joseph Power, the family's attorney. "A guard did too. But a (supervising) nurse rejected that."

The Cook County medical examiner found that Sercye would have needed an immediate operation to repair his aorta.

Ravenswood officials later told its employees that they should help patients in the immediate vicinity of the building.

The hospital also agreed in 1999 to pay $40,000 to settle a federal complaint filed by the Department of Health and Human Services in connection with Sercye's death.

Ravenswood was closed after Advocate, a not-for-profit health-care organization based in suburban Oak Brook, sold the hospital's campus to a group of investors in 2002, said Advocate spokesman Ed Domansky. He would not discuss the settlement with the Sercye family.