10.
FATAL COFFEE INJECTION
23-year-old Rejane Moreira Telles was just three days into her job at a medical clinic
in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 when she made a career-ruining mistake.
While caring for an 80-year-old patient, the rookie nurse accidentally injected a mixture
of milk and coffee into the woman’s IV instead of her feeding tube.
The substances went straight to Palmerina Pires Ribeiro’s heart and lungs, and she
died just hours later.
Nutritional specialist Dr. Armando Carreir told BrazilianTV Globo’s Fantastico show
that Ribeiro would have felt like she was suffocating.
Telles was among four members who were indicted for involuntary manslaughter, including two
nurses and a nursing student.
She went on Brazilian national TV, claiming in an interview that she had never been trained
in the procedure that she made the fatal mistake on.
She also said that she was aware of the risks that come with administering an IV feed, but
that Ms. Ribeiro’s blood and feed drips were right next to each other.
“Anyone can get mixed up,” Telles said in her own defense.
And some might even argue that having to live with knowing her mistake cost someone their
life might be enough punishment for the young nurse.
But, unfortunately for her, the authorities felt that it was necessary to make her answer
to the law.
9.
INJECTED WITH EMBALMING DRUGS
Ekaterina Fedyaeva expected to go home alive and well when she went to the hospital for
surgery in Ulyanovsk, Russia back in 2018.
But things took a horrifying turn at the hands of the medical team.
While she was on the operating table, an employee somehow accidentally injected Ekaterina with
formaldehyde – a chemical that is used for preserving dead bodies – instead of a simple
saline drip, like she was supposed to receive.
After the surgery, when the woman came around from the anesthesia, her mother and husband
noticed that she was cold and convulsing.
They claimed that no doctors came to check on Ekaterina, and she began vomiting and suffering
from severe stomach pain.
Her mother, Galina Baryshnikova, said that she put socks, a robe, and a blanket on her
daughter, but she continued to shake uncontrollably.
Baryshnikova and Ekaterina’s husband, Igor, had no idea what was causing the alarming
symptoms.
Doctors reassured the concerned pair that everything was fine, and to go home and stop
worrying.
Meanwhile, Ekaterina’s condition deteriorated overnight as she wound up in the intensive
care unit.
She went into a coma and medical staff offered the family a vague explanation, saying that
a medical mistake had taken place and that Ekaterina’s heart, lungs, and liver had
stopped working.
Fifty-two different drugs were used to try saving the young woman’s life, and she was
flown to a top hospital in Moscow to see if the country’s best doctors could do anything
to help, but their efforts were futile.
Ekaterina died under the care of people we are taught to trust more-or-less unconditionally
with our lives: doctors.
Shortly after the tragedy, the press reported that an investigation into what Baryshnikova
called “pure murder” was underway.
8.
WRAPPED LIKE A MUMMY
Early last year, a young man named Merwin Fabregas was in a car accident in the Philippines.
He was rushed to the hospital and admitted to the COVID-19 ward despite his injuries
from the crash.
Fabregas was put on life support, but it was too late to save his life, and at some point
the plug was pulled.
His family accused the hospital of disconnecting the life support before he died.
The hospital, on the other hand, denied any wrongdoing and claimed that they waited until
after Fabregas passed away to unplug the machine.
They also explained that they admitted him to the COVID-19 ward as a precaution.
Fabregas’ family also accused the hospital of wrapping the young man’s body in packaging
tape, like a mummy.
But this was reportedly standard procedure for handling the bodies of patients who were
suspected of having COVID-19.
Dr. Napoleon Obana told local media that there was a local upsurge in coronavirus cases,
and protocols dictated that Fabregas’ remains had to be wrapped the way it was to prevent
the virus from spreading.
It’s unknown whether authorities investigated the matter.
7.
PATIENT RECEIVES THE WRONG SURGERY
Fifty-three-year-old Regina Turner was admitted to a Missouri hospital in 2013 for a procedure
called a left-sided craniotomy bypass.
The operation was supposed to prevent her from continuing to have strokes after a series
of mini-strokes left her with difficulty talking.
Turner went into surgery in pretty good shape.
She was coherent and able to take care of herself.
But she received a right bypass instead of a left bypass, and it damaged her nervous
system.
Her life deteriorated after that, leaving her in need of round-the-clock care.
A lawsuit alleged that the operation left Turner disfigured and struggling with ongoing
emotional distress, anxiety, and depression.
Doctors performed the correct procedure after they realized their mistake, but the damage
was done.
Turner remained in poor condition, and her family’s lawyer accused the hospital staff
of not taking the correct steps to prepare for the surgery, which would have likely prevented
the life-ruining mistake.
What would your family do if something like this happened to you?
Let us know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe while you’re at it!
:)
6.
DEATH BY HOSPITAL INFECTION
The family of a 9-year-old Colorado girl named Alyssa Hemmelgarn received devastating news
in 2007, when the little girl was diagnosed with leukemia.
She hadn’t been feeling well in quite some time, suffering from swollen glands and cold
sores that wouldn’t go away.
Her family doctor sent her to the hospital, where her loved ones learned just how serious
her suffering was.
Alyssa’s condition seemed to be improving after a week of treatment.
She got up and walked around the hospital and watched a movie with her mother, Carole.
But her symptoms soon began to worsen again, and this time, doctors were unable to save
her despite their best efforts.
The most surprising aspect of the tragedy is that it wasn’t the leukemia that killed
Alyssa.
She died from a hospital-acquired infection called Clostridium difficile.
It’s a bacteria that infects the large intestine.
The infection had worsened with each day Alyssa suffered from it, yet it had gone undetected
by hospital staff.
A doctor had noted that the girl was “anxious” and gave her Ativan to calm her down.
The sedative may have masked Alyssa’s symptoms, but there may have been another reason why
she didn’t receive the treatment she needed.
IV drugs to treat infections like the one she had are extremely expensive, and are known
to cost upwards of $50,000 for a single treatment.
Doctors tend not to use them unless it’s an established fact that they are absolutely
necessary.
Alyssa’s death was tragic, but not in vain.
It inspired statewide reforms in medical treatment at hospitals in an effort to prevent conditions
like hers from being overlooked and untreated again in the future.
5.
WHEN THE WRONG DRUG IS A DEADLY ONE
While undergoing dialysis in 2010 for kidney disease, 79-year-old Richard Smith began to
feel short of breath.
He was admitted to the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital, where he complained
of having a stomachache.
The following day, a nurse came by to give Smith an antacid, but he instead received
a paralytic drug called pancuronium.
In small doses, the muscle relaxer is used for intubation.
In large doses, it’s used for lethal injections.
Not surprisingly, the drug put Smith into respiratory arrest and rendered him unresponsive.
As diabolical as the mix-up may seem, it was truly an accident.
The packaging for both the antacid and the paralytic looked similar enough for someone
to get them tragically confused with one another.
By the time doctors resuscitated Smith, he was brain-dead and in a vegetative state.
He died a month later.
The Smith family’s lawyer, Andrew Yaffa, described the ordeal as “the worst case
of medical neglect” he had ever seen.
He pointed out that even if the packaging of the two drugs looked similar, the nurse
who administered the paralytic must have failed to follow numerous protocols, to the point
of not even closely checking to make sure he or she was handling the right product.
Yaffa also accused the hospital of showing no remorse for the mistake, and failing to
discipline the nurse who was responsible for it.
But the facility at least removed the drug from all of its nurses’ stations, which
I suppose is better than doing nothing.
4.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY AT A MENTAL HOSPITAL
What happened to Joshua Spriestersbach one day in 2017 was bizarre beyond what anyone
could possibly imagine, and probably more awful than many people’s worst nightmare.
The man had fallen asleep on the sidewalk outside a Honolulu homeless shelter while
waiting for a free meal.
A police officer came by and mistook him for someone else named Thomas Castlebury, who
was wanted for a probation violation relating to some drug charges from back in 2006.
It wasn’t the first time police had mistaken Spriestersbach for Castlebury; it was actually
the third.
But they didn’t want to hear it when he tried saying they had the wrong man.
He ended up in a mental hospital under Castlebury’s name, where he languished for more than two
years despite his repeated attempts to convince the authorities and staff that they had mistaken
his identity.
Instead of listening to him, doctors wrote the man off as delusional.
They medicated him into a catatonic state, even obtaining a court order so that they
could administer drugs against his will – perhaps because it made him less resistant to being
in a place where he didn’t belong.
Even Spriesterbach’s lawyers didn’t believe him, leaving him trapped in a place where
he was forcibly medicated and practically defenseless against the system that was failing
him miserably.
Finally, in 2020, the people who controlled the man’s life realized their mistake.
They cut him loose from the psychiatric hospital but offered little else in the way of making
things right.
Spriesterbach moved in with his sister in Connecticut because many of his records in
Hawaii still identify him as Thomas Castlebury, meaning he could wind up in another bad situation
involving a mistaken identity.
He’s suing the state for the suffering he endured and to get any criminal records identifying
him as Castlebury removed.
3.
WRONG SIDE OF THE BRAIN
Sometimes, surgeons amputate the right leg when they’re supposed to take the left.
Others operate on the wrong side of the brain.
In 2007, the Rhode Island Hospital came under fire for making this exact mistake three times
in one year.
Each of the three faulty operations were performed by a different doctor.
Two of the patients survived and were fine, but one patient died a few weeks after the
botched procedure, prompting the state’s health department to investigate the ongoing
issue.
The agency fined the hospital $50,000 and imposed some new restrictions.
Meanwhile, the hospital issued a statement saying that it was reevaluating its training
and policies, improving its oversight, and taking other steps to prevent history from
repeating itself a 4th time.
Health Department Director David R. Gifford acknowledged that the hospital had made some
changes.
But it wasn’t enough.
After the tragedy, an attending physician was required to be present throughout all
intracranial neurosurgery procedures.
2.
MAN HAS WRONG LEG AMPUTATED
An 82-year-old man from Austria needlessly lost both legs last year when a hospital mix-up
led to surgeons amputating the wrong leg.
He was due to have his left leg removed above the knee, but an employee put preoperative
marks on the man’s right leg, and the operating team proceeded accordingly.
The Freistadt Clinic, which was responsible for the extremely unfortunate mishap, chalked
the mistake up to “human error.”
Workers at the facility near the Czech border only realized that the man lost his wrong
leg when they went to change his wound dressing after the procedure.
He had “numerous medical conditions,” including problems with both legs.
And although it wasn’t necessary to remove them both, that’s what ended up happening.
A statement from the hospital describes the situation as “a disastrous combination of
circumstances” and explains that the patient’s family was informed and offered psychological
services and support.
Details of the incident were also provided to the local prosecutor’s office.
If nothing else, at least the Freistadt Clinic was transparent about what happened.
The surgeon who performed the surgery voluntarily went off-duty following the botched procedure.
1.
OPERATING TOOLS LEFT INSIDE PATIENT
California resident Mary Harber went to the hospital in 2017 to have a benign tumor removed
from her abdomen.
After she went home, she continued to experience severe back, kidney, and abdominal pain.
When it hadn’t subsided nearly two weeks later, Harber knew something wasn’t right,
so she went to the emergency room.
During the exploratory procedure, the team had accidentally left an 8-inch (20.3 cm)
pair of surgical forceps inside the patient.
Doctors removed 18 inches (45.7 cm) of her small intestine, which had looped around the
handle of the instrument.
Harber sued the Shasta Regional Medical Center for medical negligence, alleging that defendant
Dr. Richard Mooney had a responsibility to remove the forceps from her body and failed
to do so.
At the time, the patient was still recovering from her procedures, and while she was doing
okay, the lawsuit argued that she would need further medical care.
Her lawyer, Michelle Jenni, told the press that negotiations with the hospital over a
settlement were ongoing.
Speaking with local station KING 5, Stanford Law School professor Michelle Mello explained
that it’s fairly rare for medical instruments to be left inside of patients.
“But it does happen,” she conceded, and the estimates on how often it occurs vary.
According to one study, there were around 1,500 cases of objects being left in patients
out of 28.4 million inpatient surgeries performed in the U.S. annually.
While it’s true that this is an extremely low number, it’s still terrifying to realize
that it’s even a slight possibility!
Thanks for watching!
If you’d like to learn about more bizarre hospital mistakes, let us know in the comments
below and be sure to subscribe.
See you next time, bye! :)