JOHN RITTER - RITTER IGNORED MEDICAL ADVICE THREE YEARS BEFORE HIS DEATH

The three doctors fighting charges they mishandled actor JOHN RITTER's medical treatment on the night he died have revealed the BAD SANTA star ignored advice to see a heart specialist. Ritter's widow Amy Yasbeck has already won a $12.5 million (GBP6.25 million) settlement from Los Angeles' Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, claiming her husband would still be alive if staff had taken a simple X-ray when the actor checked into the emergency room complaining of chest pains. It was too late to save Ritter when doctors eventually realised he had a tear in a blood vessel and he suffered a massive heart attack in 2003. Yasbeck is now suing the doctors who she claims bungled her late husband's treatment, but they maintain the actor himself was to blame for his death because he ignored medical advice he received in 2000. The trio insists it will prove Ritter ignored the advice when the misdiagnosis case comes to trial in January (08). The doctors' attorney Stephen Fraser tells America's the Globe, "It's not the doctors' fault."