A husband sued the hospital treating his wife for Covid to force them to treat her with cattle-worming drug ivermectin.
Mum-of-two Tamara Drock, 47, died on Friday of Covid after being admitted to Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center around three months ago.
As his wife battled the virus, husband Ryan Drock took legal action against the facility to try force them to prescribe the de-wormer, Palm Beach Post reports.
The controversial medicine can be used in specific doses to treat humans for parasitic infections, and is routinely used to deworm farm animals like horse and cattle.
But despite it being falsely touted online as a Covid cure-all, there is no scientific proof that it helps the body to fight off the virus.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the medication for Covid. They say its effectiveness is yet to be proven clinical trials.
The lawsuit was rejected by a Palm Beach County court in October.
Judge James Nutt said it would set a dangerous precedent if members of the judiciary were allowed to overrule the decisions of trained medical professionals.
He urged the two parties to reach an agreement out of court.
A doctor later agreed to administer the drug, but it was a dosage the Drocks' lawyer said was too low.
Mrs Drock, who worked as a teacher at Egret Lake Elementary, was put on a ventilator in September after being admitted to the hospital a month earlier, WPTV reports.
At the time, the family's attorney, Jake Huxtable, said Tamara was "sitting on her deathbed" after being revived when she "flatlined".
"But the hospital is out of options", he added.
Local station WPTV reported the hospital confirmed it had run out of ways to treat her. It's currently unknown how she was treated in the days before her death.
A physician at another facility owned by Tenet Healthcare, which runs the Palm Beach hospital, reportedly approved the drug be administered to the teacher.
A pharmacy was also willing and able to dispense the medication, local media reported.
The Drocks' lawyer made a distinction between the "unsafe" dosages used to treat horses and a suitable dose for Tamara.
But after the doctor agreed to give her the drug, the lawyer said the dose was too low.
'We don't know if [the drug] would have saved her life, but it could have,' Huxtable said.
'Maybe it wouldn't have done anything, but we're pursuing the case strictly from a legal perspective. Every person in Florida has a constitutional right to choose what is done with their own body.'
Tamara, who lived in Loxahatchee, Florida, died from Covid complications, and leaves behind her husband, daughter Emily, 14, and son Parker, 12.
Mr Drock told local media he hopes laws will be made under his wife's name, "so no one has to go through this".
A GoFundMe page has already reached $10,000 of its $150,000 target after being set up to pay for Tamara's medical bills.
