A Macon jury awards family of patient after fatal anesthesia issues. They get $13 million
The family of a woman who died after anesthesia complications during surgery in Bibb County won more than $13 million in damages in court, Katherine McArthur, the family’s attorney, said Thursday afternoon.
McArthur said the wrongful death case was filed after the death of Bennie Moore, a morbidly obese patient seeking surgery to address her weight issues and the health problems that came with it. However, an anesthesiologist’s assistant administered too much of an anesthetic, causing Moore to stop breathing and lose her pulse.
After she was resuscitated, Moore was diagnosed with a brain injury and cardiac arrest. She later died while in hospice, McArthur said.
The case was heard in front of a jury in Bibb County State Court, which declared last month that the anesthesiologist’s assistant was 82.5% at fault, while the anesthesiologist was 17.5% at fault, according to court records. Moore’s family was awarded $775,000 in medical bills, $2.5 million for pain and suffering and $10.5 million for wrongful death, totaling about $13.75 million.
“Lindsey Macon very masterfully handled the entire (physician’s assistant) side of the case, and I handled the anesthesiologist side of the case,” said McArthur. “How blessed I am to get to work this closely with my daughter!”
Patient was high risk for for anesthetic issue
Moore, who weighed 337 pounds, underwent a procedure at Coliseum Health System Northside Hospital on Nov. 14, 2017, to examine the lining of her esophagus, stomach and most of her intestine before being considered for bariatric surgery, McArthur said. The surgery was meant to address her weight issues and health problems that came with it.
She was meant to be given monitored anesthesia care through this procedure, rather than general anesthesia. This was due to her morbid obesity and obstructive sleep apnea, which made her an “extremely high risk patient for airway obstruction during sedation,” McArthur said.
Many of her other conditions meant that she “did not have the reserves of a normally healthy patient and could not withstand a period of several minutes without oxygen,” according to McArthur.
However, the anesthesiologist, David McKinney, didn’t take any additional precautions with her health conditions, according to the lawsuit. He didn’t tell his assistant, Ginny Trogdon, about Moore’s health conditions even though she had done sedations for other morbidly obese patients all afternoon, McArthur said. McKinney was also supervising another procedure in an operating room on a different floor.
After Moore was given the anesthetic, she stopped breathing. Trogdon didn’t notice until she was alerted by a surgeon and, at that point, Moore’s heart rate significantly dropped, McArthur said. She had lost her pulse completely for eight minutes, and couldn’t breathe on her own for about 14 minutes. She was getting air from an ambu bag, a handheld device that helps patients breathe, which was used to resuscitate her.
Moore was then diagnosed with a hypoxic brain injury and cardiac arrest due to not receiving oxygen for an extended time. She was in a vegetative state for several weeks and was later taken to Regency Hospital for long-term care, McArthur said.
“After a month there, she developed an infection, potentially pneumonia, and died of sepsis and cardiac arrest,” said McArthur.
McArthur and her team argued in the trial that the assistant failed to adequately monitor the patient, not noticing that Moore wasn’t breathing and giving her too much anesthetic too fast. She also argued that the anesthesiologist had failed to properly supervise the assistant and tell her about Moore’s health conditions before going through the procedure.
However, the assistant had argued in the trial that she had known of Moore’s health condition without being told by the anesthesiologist and that she had been doing sedations for seven other morbidly obese patients going through the same procedure as Moore that afternoon. McKinney argued that he was not guilty of professional negligence, that he did not cause medical malpractice and that he exercised the same degree of care that other professionals would do under the same circumstances, court documents show.
McArthur had an anesthesiology expert testify that, if a conversation between the assistant and the anesthesiologist had occurred, the airway obstruction would have been noticed sooner and dealt with properly.
