COLUMBIA, S.C. - A new law requires inexperienced doctors known as residents to wear identification tags in hospitals so patients can ask for more experienced physicians if there is an emergency.

The law, known as the Lewis Blackman Hospital Safety Act, spawned after Helen Haskell lost her son in 2000 when Blackman bled internally over a 30-hour period. Residents at the Medical University of South Carolina missed repeated signs of trouble and the hospital's insurer paid more than $900,000 to settle the case without going to trial.

Haskell wanted doctor disclosure for other patients after her son's death. The new law requires all doctors require identification tags.

Haskell tried for three years to get the bill passed until she finally hired two lobbyists this year with some of her settlement money. That made the difference, she said.

"They were magicians. I could not have bird-dogged it the way they did, with their networks," she said. "They had the time and the expertise."

Haskell's local lawmaker, Rep. James Smith, D-Columbia, had been helping but the bill hadn't even made it out of committee after two years. "I gave up at that point," Haskell said.

In January, Haskell hired lobbyists Jack West and Ron Fulmer for $20,000. Corporate clients can pay $50,000 or more for a lobbyists' services for one year.

"She tugs at your heart," West said. "We're softies, deep down."

Haskell told the pair about how her 16-year-old son died from negligence at the Medical University. She told them how she didn't know the doctors caring for her son were residents, and believed they knew what they were doing when they dismissed her son's complaints of pain.

Her story, with the lobbyists help, finally got her bill passed into law.

But it didn't happen overnight.

Before hiring the lobbyists, Haskell and Smith met repeatedly with representatives of the South Carolina Hospital Association and the Medical University of South Carolina, which each have full-time lobbyists. Smith drew up dozens of different versions of the bill to reach a compromise with the medical lobby. However, the bill stayed in limbo until this year until Haskell hired West, son of the late Gov. John West, and Fulmer, a former Republican state representative from Charleston.

The pair, who are at the Statehouse almost daily during the legislative session, were able to intervene quickly if the bill stalled.

The bill ran into trouble on the Senate floor after Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, wanted an amendment saying evidence that a resident didn't wear proper identification could be used in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

The medical lobby would have opposed that amendment, so West persuaded Hutto to drop his request.

The bill finally headed to Gov. Mark Sanford's desk earlier this month.

On Wednesday, Sanford let the bill become law without his signature, saying he thought it was over-regulation and would drive up medical costs. But he said it may reduce medical errors.

"This wasn't about regulation," Haskell said. "This was about disclosure."