LAMONT, Calif. -- A family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the County of Kern and Kern Medical Center, saying the hospital should be held accountable for the diagnosis that put a man through months of radiation therapy that they say contributed to his death, although years later, doctors said he never had cancer in the first place.

Melissa Poot, she said she will never forget the day in 2001 when her father, Juan Blanco, was rushed to the emergency room at Kern Medical Center after suffering a seizure.

"The doctors came out and said that my dad had a brain tumor," Poot recalls. "They said they had to get in and do surgery because if they didn't do surgery they didn't know how long he could make it."

After the surgery, Blanco's doctors sent him to more than two months of radiation therapy. Poot said her dad never got better. She said the medicines he was taking would put him to sleep for days, and when he was awake, he suffered from constant headaches and seizures.

"He was like a guinea pig for them," Poot said. "They didn't really know what they were doing. They were testing things on my dad and when they would give him a medication, they would say, 'Oh no, it's not working. We're going to switch you on to this one.'"

After almost six years of constant suffering without definite answers, Blanco had an appointment set up with an epilepsy specialist in San Francisco in 2007. But he never made the appointment because he collapsed in a hotel room, and was rushed to Stanford University Medical Center. After three months at Stanford, the doctors broke the news to him that all the treatment he received was for a medical condition they say he never had.

"One doctor just came in and he said, 'Mr. Blanco, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you never had a tumor. You never had cancer,' "Poot recalled. "My dad, referring to the radiation, just looked and said, 'Why, why did they do this?'"

The doctors at Stanford concluded Blanco suffered a minor stroke when he made the original visit to the ER at KMC in 2001, and suffered from a "chronic stroke-like syndrome resulting from radiation necrosis," according to a letter issued to Blanco obtained by ABC 23.

"After getting that news, he did not trust any doctors out here in Bakersfield," Poot said. "He was scared to go to any doctor."

Even after that diagnosis, there was an incident in which a local hospital wanted to provide more cancer treatment to Blanco. Blanco was taken to Memorial Hospital in late 2007 suffering from another seizure, and the doctors there told him they needed to resume cancer treatments, according to Blanco's wife, Irma.

Poot then called the doctors at Stanford Medical Center, who told the staff at Memorial of their prognosis and urged them not to operate, Irma Blanco said. Minutes later, Juan Blanco was discharged.

Juan Blanco ultimately died in July 2008 from a cerebral hemorrhage. His family claims it was caused by the radiation.

"The hemorrhaging spot was where they shot the radiation in his brain, and it slowly deteriorated," Poot said.

Citing confidentiality clauses, Kern County Counsel would not comment on the specifics of the case, but said it will argue KMC should not be held liable for Blanco's death.

"We assert all our legal defenses and deny any wrongdoing or negligence in this matter," Jennifer Zahry, deputy county counsel, said. "It is the county's position that no action by the county or inaction caused the death of Mr. Blanco."

Blanco's family says it was offered a $125,000 settlement by the county, but rejected it, saying they would much rather have Blanco back alive with them.

"Just because they tell you have cancer, you have this, still get a second opinion," Poot said. "I wish we would have gotten a second opinion a long time ago for my dad. Maybe my dad would still be alive."

A pair of management conferences are scheduled in the coming weeks. A jury trial is tentatively scheduled to start April 19, and is expected to last two weeks.