Latest News 2010 December Over $250K Due to Tube Left Behind in Baby

Over $250K Due to Tube Left Behind in Baby

As reported by the News Tribune, a West Richland couple will receive a $257,000 medical malpractice settlement from Kadlec Regional Medical Center from an incident that involved their premature baby, and a 4-inch length of plastic tubing that the Center had left behind in his lung during a procedure.

The jury was unanimous in finding the hospital negligent in their November 24 verdict. 

Dr Miriam Zaragoza, the child's neonatologist, accused of leaving the plastic tubing inside the baby for an additional day after its discovery - and withholding the information from the parents - was found negligent by one juror.

Jim Hall, spokesman for Kadlec, commented that the hospital was disappointed with the judgment and said, "We're glad the child is healthy today and is showing no lingering effects from the unfortunate mishap that occurred two years ago."

Claiming Kadlec employees had covered up the October 2008 incident, the suit was filed in November 2009 by the infant's parents, Joseph and Heather Cooper.

Born six weeks too soon, on October 23, 2008, Heather Cooper said her son Khail Cooper had underdeveloped lungs.  Due to this fact, he had difficulty breathing and was placed in the care of the NICU.  While in the NICU, a drug was administered to assist his breathing.

It was the way the drug was given to Khail that presented the problem - a tube was to be inserted and then immediately removed - and the second time it was attempted, on October 24, the respiratory therapist bent and broke the tube in Khail's lung.

Attorney for the Coopers, John Schultz, alleged no one knew that the tube had been left behind until October 26 when a radiologist spotted in on an X-ray.  The foreign object wasn't detected in an X-ray taken the day before by a different radiologist and daily X-rays were needed to track the growth of Khail's lungs.

Schultz contends that Zaragoza told the radiologist - that reported what he found to her - that she was not going to disclose the information to the parents for a full day.  

Heather Cooper said, "Meanwhile, my child was writhing in pain.  He was fighting for hours and hours and hours.  Khail wouldn't eat or sleep, and scratched at his chest while panting up to 120 times per minute.  He was working really hard to breathe."

Zaragoza wasn't on duty the next day, instead, the NICU's medical director, Dr. Anthony Hadeed, was scheduled.  Allegedly, when he was told about the tube in Khail's chest, Schultz said that Hadeed moved quickly and had a jet to transport the two so that, "within an hour the mother and baby were on their way to Seattle."

Khail went directly into surgery in the Seattle Children's Hospital and recovered there for about a week. 

In his testimony, Heather Cooper's father, local physician Dr. Ray Kania, credited the swift response of Hadeed, and the care at Seattle Children, for saving his grandchild's life.

The only way to determine if any long-term damage has been done to Khail would be to have him undergo invasive exploratory surgery.  Heather Cooper stated, "There is no way I'm putting my child under (anesthesia) just to check."

The jury awarded $2,400 to cover the medical cost of Khail's 18 month recalls with a pediatric pulmonologist, $37,000 to reimburse Group Health for medical expenses the insurance company paid to Seattle Children's, $7,804 for other costs incurred by the Coopers and $210,000 for their pain and suffering.

Heather Cooper, thankful for the money that will be saved for Khail's college fund, said, "They have never apologized for this, we heard a lot of excuses. We heard excuses for two years long. ... They never said, 'We made a mistake here and we need to do some things to correct this."

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Categories: Medical Negligence