Lawsuit Claims Woman Bled To Death In Garbage Can After Open-Heart Surgery Due To Surgeon’s Mistakes

This is horrific — and judging by the lawsuit involved here, this poor woman’s death sounds entirely preventable and unnecessary!

Donnamay Brockbank, a 62-year-old Utah woman, died at St. Mark’s Hospital in a Salt Lake City suburb last July 11 when, according to a suit filed this month in court, doctors forgot to close a tube that was draining blood from her body after an open-heart surgery procedure. Because her surgeons failed to close that medical waste tube, the suit alleges, Brockbank bled to death on the operating table after her surgery was completed.

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According to the family’s allegations based on court docs, and reported by NBC News, the 62-year-old had undergone surgery to remove a heart device that was causing an allergic reaction within her body. But after the device was removed, surgeons Dr. Shreekanth V. Karwande, and Dr. David G. Affleck allegedly forgot to clamp down a tube that had been draining blood from her body into a medical waste garbage can.

As the surgeons cleaned up and left following surgery, it’s claimed they neglected to clamp down and shut off the tube, and because of that, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Brockbank “bled to death because all of her blood and seven additional units” drained into the garbage can.

OMG!!!

Brockbank’s four adult children are now suing the surgeons involved, officially filing suit in the Third Judicial District Court in Salt Lake City earlier this month.

In part, the suit states that as Karwande and Affleck left the operating room after the procedure — allegedly without removing or clamping the tube — another worker began to break down the bypass machine. Brockbank’s heart was beating on its own by then, and it began pumping blood through the still-open tube, and into the medical waste garbage can. At one point, a third doctor in the room — anesthesiologist Dr. Kyle Enslin — noticed Brockbank’s vitals were dropping, and he had Karwande return.

The suit states from there (below):

“Ms. Brockbank bled until her heart could no longer beat because all of her blood and seven additional units were in the garbage can on the floor below the operating table. By the time Karwande did return, Ms. Brockbank was already in severe distress because all of her blood had drained into the reservoir that was sitting in the garbage can.”

That is just… horrific.

To make matters worse, those “seven additional units” came about because Karwande allegedly tried pumping MORE blood into Brockbank’s body without even taking a second to realize why blood was pumping out in the first place; all the blood that was pumped in as part of the effort to save her was apparently pumped through the tube and right out again, into the garbage can. Unreal…

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Now, her family, which includes four adult children, is alleging severe “emotional anguish” and is seeking an unspecified amount of money, to be determined at trial.

Her 39-year-old son, Brad Brockbank, recalled what’s been missing since his mom’s untimely passing in a video provided by the family’s lawyer (below):

“Mom’s qualities were countless. First and foremost, just the love she had for others. She would give herself to anybody that needed it. She was the kindest, most generous woman that I’ve ever known.”

So sad… and such a scary, unsettling way to go. Ugh.

Our thoughts are with the Brockbank family, as they’ll have to suffer living through this whole ordeal again in the courtroom; hopefully, at least, justice will prevail and the courts will get this one right.

R.I.P., Donnamay…

[Image via WENN]

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