The widow of Native American activist Russell Means has filed a lawsuit accusing doctors in New Mexico of overlooking his esophageal cancer.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Monday that the lawsuit by Pearl Means in state District Court in Las Vegas, New Mexico, accuses doctors who work at clinics owned by Santa Fe's Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center of allowing his condition to worsen. He died in 2012 at age 72.
Lawyers for the hospital deny any wrongdoing.
Means gained fame in 1970 when he orchestrated a Thanksgiving day event in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where Indian protesters seized a replica of the Mayflower. He shrouded President George Washington's bust on Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, in 1972 with a sheet to protest broken treaties. And the following year, he led a 71-day standoff in Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
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