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Thread: Family sues Utah hospital after grandmother, 62, dies following routine bypass surgery when doctors 'left an unclamped tube in her neck from her heart that caused her to bleed out into a garbage can'

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    WTF Family sues Utah hospital after grandmother, 62, dies following routine bypass surgery when doctors 'left an unclamped tube in her neck from her heart that caused her to bleed out into a garbage can'

    By SOPHIE WINGATE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM




    The family of a Utah woman is suing a hospital, saying she died because doctors left an open tube from her heart that drained her blood into a garbage can.

    Donnamay Brockbank, 62, of Vineyard, had heart surgery at St. Mark's Hospital in Millcreek on July 11, 2018, to remove a medical device that was causing an allergic reaction, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

    'It boggles the mind, with how experienced this team was, that nobody would catch such a simple oversight,' said Rhome D. Zabriskie, one of the family's attorneys.

    During the procedure, she had a cardiopulmonary bypass, whereby blood left her body through a tube in her neck and re-entered in her femur.



    After the surgery, when Brockbank's heart was beating on its own again, the technician broke down the bypass machine and closed the re-entry tube to the femur.

    But the tube draining blood from the woman's neck was left unclamped, allowing blood to pump directly from Brockbank's heart into a medical garbage can, the lawsuit alleges.

    When her blood pressure crashed, doctors performed transfusions to add seven pints of blood - nearly double the amount of blood typically in a human body - to try and save her.

    But nobody addressed the tube in Brockbank's neck still leaking blood into the trash can, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

    The woman briefly stabilized, but with blood continuing to leak out, her heart gave out.

    The surgeon, Dr. Shreekanth V. Karwande, reopened her chest and tried to manually manipulate her heart, but could not revive her.

    Around an hour and a half after the surgery, Karwande told the family 'this is on him, and that she has died,' Rand Nolen, an attorney for her family, told the Tribune.

    Hospital staff told the grieving family two days later that a 'reservoir of blood' had been found in a garbage can.

    Attorneys for the family claim they had to largely reconstruct what happened with the help of outside medical experts and family recollections of conversations with hospital staff, because the medical records from the surgery 'fell well below any known standard of care in the United States of America'.

    'The records relating to this surgery are as poor, if not poorer, than you would find in a third world country,' the lawsuit claims.

    Nolen told the Tribune that the records are 'amazingly bad,' and that the hospital did not provide the expected step-by-step recitation from the surgeon on what led to the patient's death.

    Brockbank was survived by her husband, four children, five stepchildren, more than 20 grandchildren, as well as her parents and six siblings.

    She was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, according to her online obituary.

    'She served valiantly in many callings,' the text says. 'She was loving and kind to all she met, always striving to live a Christ centered life.'

    Her son Bradley Dean Brockbank posted on Facebook at the time of her death that the family was 'in shock' after 'my mother went in for a fairly routine procedure on her heart.

    'Sadly after everything had gone well, things took a turn for the worse and the doctors were unable to revive her.'

    A GoFundMe page raising funds for her funeral said she was 'an amazing, kind, and giving soul' who 'lived every day with a smile and found opportunities to serve every person she could find'.

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    Mr Magoo RBP's Avatar
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    Jesus.
    I wanted to be a Monk, but I never got the chants.

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    transracial Hal-9000's Avatar
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    Horrifying.

    And you don't hear this often from a doctor " Around an hour and a half after the surgery, Karwande told the family this is on him, and that she has died."

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    #DeSantis2024 Teh One Who Knocks's Avatar
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    I wonder what that family is going to do with their new hospital that they just came into ownership of.

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    transracial Hal-9000's Avatar
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    We had some twerp up here who was accused of hurting/killing patients. I think he primarily did women's issue surgeries and abortions.

    Right to the end he never admitted any wrongdoing and fought the charges.

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    #DeSantis2024 Teh One Who Knocks's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal-9000 View Post
    We had some twerp up here who was accused of hurting/killing patients. I think he primarily did women's issue surgeries and abortions.

    Right to the end he never admitted any wrongdoing and fought the charges.
    Did he get convicted?

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    transracial Hal-9000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks View Post
    Did he get convicted?
    I'm trying to find the article as he wasn't in my city. Not important but I think he was convicted of some weird half charge like 'undo neglect' and they were looking at pulling his medical license.

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    #DeSantis2024 Teh One Who Knocks's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal-9000 View Post
    I'm trying to find the article as he wasn't in my city. Not important but I think he was convicted of some weird half charge like 'undo neglect' and they were looking at pulling his medical license.


    He must have had a good lawyer.

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    transracial Hal-9000's Avatar
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    I'll mention this again because I think it's a good CAUTIONARY TALE about getting a second opinion.

    My Dad complained to his family doctor about shortness of breath in the beginning of 2015. His doctor had a lung X-ray taken and eventually told my Dad and I quote, " That's just what 83 year old lungs sound like. You're in excellent shape otherwise." My Dad was a smoker 30 years previous to this and had quit so he accepted the diagnosis and the persistent symptom.

    About 1.5 years later my Dad started coughing up blood and we took him the ER. Doctor there read the same X-ray report from the previous year and told my sister and I - This is cancer. I'm not sure how his family doctor missed it. Emergency doctor took CT scans to confirm and four hours later my Dad had lung cancer.

    The X-ray report mentioned suspicious structures in both lungs (we read it later) and I asked the cancer nurse practitioner how could this be missed by the family doctor? She was non committal but did mention that unfortunately cancer is missed by GP's all the time. I could tell she wanted to say more about his ineptitude but didn't want to go there. She said 'she' would have ordered CT scans immediately after reading the X-ray report.

    Fast forward and my Dad decides to keep seeing his family doc because he felt comfortable with him and had been seeing him for a few years. Dad didn't want to switch doctors at 83 after getting a cancer diagnosis.

    I took my Dad to all of his appointments and met his family doctor. I asked him point blank - How did this happen? The guy gave me some sort of bullshit answer and then I found out he handles end of life scenarios for seniors. Meaning he is well aware of cancer and how to treat people with that sort of diagnosis.

    Apologies for the long personal story but I found it took everything I had not to really lay into this guy and/or make his life difficult. The nurse practitioner said that making claims against doctors is a whole can of worms you don't want to get into because you typically have to find support from two other doctors and they must help prove that your doctor made a mistake. She said even if you could get a ruling in your favor, it would take years and likely exhaust your finances.

    And to top it off the fucking tool of a doctor asks me if I need a family doctor because he's taking new patients. I told him that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Me and the sister had to visit him after my Dad passed to sign some forms and she congratulated me for not hitting him. I asked her how she knew I was that angry and she said she felt it, standing next to me.

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    I hate doctors

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    transracial Hal-9000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks View Post
    I hate doctors
    I believe I have a good family doctor now. I explained a lot of the above to her last year during my first physical and she immediately sent me for a lung X-ray, PSA test and colorectal screening. I consider those the big three when it comes to typical men's cancer.

    I've got some other things going on that aren't great and she's been really good about explaining what's happening.

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    Basement Dweller Godfather's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal-9000 View Post
    Horrifying.

    And you don't hear this often from a doctor " Around an hour and a half after the surgery, Karwande told the family this is on him, and that she has died."
    My wife was telling me they reinforce this in their training. Admit mistakes immediately and apologize directly. Not only is it morally the right thing to do, but it significantly reduces the likelihood of lawsuits believe it or not.

    Obviously whether every doctor is going to follow that mantra is a completely different matter. Surgeons especially seem to have god complexes...
    Last edited by Godfather; 07-20-2019 at 07:29 AM.

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