"...and I finally found out how much less unpleasant the whole experience could be."
I guess you also came to the realization that your dentist was a sadist. Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man comes to mind. :)
Posted on 04/22/2008 10:37:44 AM PDT by kingattax
Oral Surgery Goes Awry As Patient Given Anesthesia And Then Left In Building While Employees Lock Up And Leave---
BROOKLYN (CBS) For most, going in to get a wisdom tooth pulled is already a nightmare scenario. So imagine going in to get a wisdom tooth pulled, and then being locked inside the dental office and forgotten by the staff.
CBS 2 HD has learned a lot more about these shocking, real-life allegations.
Ramona Mercado says she was hysterical after waking up from general anesthesia all alone at the Oral Surgery and Implant Center in Williamsburg.
"Terrified, I was hyper ventilating," Mercado said. "I threw up a couple of times from over exhaustion of crying.
"No one in the office, everything was closed all the lights were off."
Mercado says from inside she called the service that referred her to this place, and they called 911 to get her out.
"The police officers came, they snipped the locks off," Mercado said. "They were the ones who opened up the door and let me out."
Mercado, a mother of two small children, says she was locked in the Oral Surgery Center for about 40 minutes and even saw her dental file left on the desk. She says the recovery room was a walk-in space with no door, so she can't understand how the staff didn't see her.
"I never got a chance to sign myself off to be discharged out, so I don't know if they were waiting for me to wake-up or they just forgot," she said. "I assume they really forgot, forgot about me."
She's now suing for medical malpractice. Her lawyer says even his colleagues find the story amazing.
"They thought it was so outrageous, they wouldn't even believe it, and unless I told them that the police had to come there and break the door down to get them out," John Kouroupas said.
"People now realize that something this crazy can happen to someone."
Needless to say, Mercado has soured on the whole surgery idea.
"I will not get anesthesia again," she said. "I don't care what procedure I have to go through, I just have to suffer through the pain."
CBS 2 HD contacted Mercado's doctor at the Oral Surgery and Implant Center for a comment, but received no response.
The doctor does need to be disciplined as well as his licensed staff over this. My wife had a dentist who gave her Mepraghan a dosage way too much for her for a simple extraction. Later that evening she went into drug induced hypothermia and a COMA for a few hours. We didn't sue but told the doctor to be much more careful. A year or two later a 12 year old died in his chair from being put under with an IV Cocktail he was not qualified or certified to administer. Needless to say he is no longer practicing. Had we sued for reasonable damages? Who knows maybe he would have been a lot more careful in his actions.
We had another case we would have been highly justified in suing an ER attending and didn't. My wife could have died due to his stupidity and arrogance. Instead we wrote a letter to the hospital Chief Of Staff who had treated my wife at one time. That man is off the hospitals list of doctors with privileges. Then there are some just great and fine caring doctors and dentist out there also who have went the extra mile so to speak and we've had plenty of them too.
I've been left waiting in an exam room myself while the entire staff went to lunch. The doctor apologized all over himself as did the nurse. I would not have known what happened had I not grew curious and opened the door and heard absolutely no one in the office LOL.
The office SHOULD be reprimanded. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a low cost clinic that closes after this suit.
We will then hear how NO ONE will treat the non-insured and under-insured and what a terrible tragedy it all it.
You and I need to pay for it......we evil conservatives.
I’ve had a couple of procedures in the last six months that required anesthesia (not out cold but for pain relief). SOP at my hospital is being hooked up to monitors, O2 and an escort if you want to go home. It’s an overnight stay in the hospital without one.
I don’t know but he certainly had grounds to complain.
The dentist is going to have an ache in his pocketbook.
It’s not the office’s responsibility, it’s the surgeon’s, and it’s the surgeon’s malpractice that will cover it. His coverage costs will go WAAAAAAAAAY up.
OH you BET he did!!!!
I had a hernia repair under local just so I wouldn’t have to go through the recovery room projectile vomiting and inability to void.
The surgeon was dubious but 30 minutes after surgery, I was taking a walk around the hospital while they finished my discharge paperwork.
Actually, if it’s a group practice they are doing the insurance together, many times. The reason being that you are not seen by the same medical people all the time so they lump it to save costs.
A suit like this could close that office.
Don't go there. You know who was at fault, and it wasn't you.
LOL!
My mind can think some awful strange things when I’m coherant, but after being under anesthesia, it just gets stranger!
Give me a freaking break. So she got locked in a clinic. That was wrong. But 40 minutes?
This sounds to me like an excuse for a lawsuit, but shouldn’t get her much. How much trauma could she have being in an office for 40 minutes?
Did anyone hear about the poor SOB who got locked in an elevator at his place of business for 40 hours? I saw this last night on the news. It happened back in 1999. It was a Friday night and he went out for a smoke came back in and got on the elevator with no watch or cell phone. The elevator broke down and he wasn’t recovered until sometime Sunday night. Must have been horible to not know what time it was or if it was day or night.
"...and I finally found out how much less unpleasant the whole experience could be."
I guess you also came to the realization that your dentist was a sadist. Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man comes to mind. :)
This sounds to me like an excuse for a lawsuit, but shouldn’t get her much. How much trauma could she have being in an office for 40 minutes?
I understand that the guy who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours
eventually got barely six figures from his lawsuit.
Being put under is serious business, and in some oral surgeries, 100% necessary (I will detail my personal experience in a second).
As others have noted, people have died from simply being put under, having an allergic reaction, etc. Being monitored is vital in all cases.
I don’t think the ‘40-min’ excuse, or the ‘she turned out fine’ excuse should keep possible legal action from happening. Now, would I sue? hard to say. If the people involved were asked by a medical board to pay a fine of some sort, I think that should go to the patient. Millions for this? no. 5-to-6 digits? I can see that.
My personal story:
A couple of decades ago I had to have wisdom teeth surgery. 3 of the 4 were impacted, and growing sideways, as opposed to thru the gumline. No way this could have been done with ‘a shot of novocane’ b.s., this was SURGERY. Hospital surgery, not in-and-out at a clinic or dentist’s office. Being fully put under, the whole nine yards. Came out 100% for what they expected. No problems.
My point is that to dismiss this person as a ‘drama queen’ or whatever because ‘she was left in an office after being put under, ha ha’ is crap. If she had something that was serious enough to have to be put under to fix, it’s a real deal. Going to a clinic to have something done is hard for some people to take mentally (we can talk about my 5-week hospital stay for an undiscovered/misdiagnosed burst appendix when I am 100% afraid of docs/hospitals/needles and what that did to my head ANYTIME).
I wouldn’t be too hard on this patient for what she went thru..thats all I’m saying.
But in our case she was entitled to damages. She did honest to goodness suffer extreme mental anguish over it and it triggered a chain of events that almost killed her. I'll explain briefly. The wrong meds the dentist prescribed and cause the COMA made her very fearful of future dental work. She got to a point she needed extensive work done but was too scared. So she seeks professional help to deal with the fear. That doctor in turns prescribes a medication known to cause severe adverse reactions in persons with neurological disorders.
It happened one evening and she was in the ER completely incoherent. Well OK it's a mental issue right? Wrong! While under the attending ER doctors care while he is trying to do a patient dump to a mental hospital she goes unconscious as in her pupils fixed and unresponsive. Now that would tell even a first year intern something is bad wrong and to look look for medical reason STAT including Stroke. I found her in an ER exam room curtains drawn and completely unresponsive.
I yelled for help and the attending just stood there doing nothing I said you stupid Dumb unmentionable she's unconscious and that is not caused by mental problems. What about a stroke ot tumor? I said I want test done on her now. He just stood there. We loaded her up in our van and off to another hospital we went. The letter of that hospitals Chief of Staff got a letter from me. Turns out after 5 days I discovered {for myself because the doctors couldn't} that she had Serotonin Syndrome a potentially fatal medication reaction that a simple look up of her medications in a PDR would have caught. An adverse reaction caused by antidepressants she was prescribed for PTSD. Yes we could have had the ER attending hide as well. BTW an MRI and CAT Sacan was done of her brain before she left the hospital. They found a recent bleeder.
Justifiable law suits are there for a good reason. One is for compensation for damages and injury and another is for punitive damages. I'm against suing at the drop of a hat but some are very justified.
I presume you're talking about The Ass Of Life?
Exactly! Or at least one that was supposed to be on call..
sw
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