The medical staff at St. Joseph’s Hospital Center in Syracuse, New York may have committed the ultimate act of malpractice in 2009 — a litany of errors that culminated in doctors wrongly pronouncing her dead and preparing to harvest her organs when Caroline Burns, 41, suddenly opened her eyes. What is equally troubling is that the hospital was fined just $6000 and never called to account in a court of law. Burns committed suicide a few years later in 2011. It is not clear why she or her family chose not to sue (also some reports have her name as Colleen Burns).
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a report on the incident.
Burns was admitted after an overdose of Xanax and Benadryl. The mistakes began almost immediately at the hospital. It was recommended that the doctors order activated charcoals to stop the absorption of the drugs but the doctors failed to do so. That allowed the drugs to be absorbed in the system and she started to suffer seizures. Yet, CT scans showed that her brain waves remained normal. Doctors told the family that she was gone and they agreed to discontinue life support.
The report found that the doctors misdiagnosed cardiopulmonary arrest and then misdiagnosed irreversible brain death. They declared her brian dead despite that fact that Burns would curl her toes when touched, move her mouth and tongue and flare her nose — classic responses for a person who is not brain dead. Moreover, while she was on a respirator, she was beginning to breathe on her own.
The doctors proceeded to harvest her organs only to have her wake up on the table. One would expect the mother of all torts actions, but Burns took her own life in 2011. The hospital was fined just $6,000 for unacceptable patient care. One report says that there was an additional fine of $16,000 from the state of New York for leaving her unattended and allowing her to fall. Notably, that failure was given more weight than the horrific series of negligence in the diagnosis. Moreover, the total amount would also be little more than a symbolic slap on the wrist for the hospital. There is no record of any discipline against the doctors or effort to have their licenses suspended or withdrawn.
It is the type of phobia that keeps some people from agreeing to be organ donors — the fear that medical staff will be too eager or negligent in their pronouncement of death. The case may well also revive the controversy over a move a couple years ago to allow doctors to harvest organs when patients are listed as dying as opposed to dead.
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Also, charcoal being administered has been standard procedure since before I got out of school in 1977. So if it was indeed not administered that’s malpractice.
Maria, that seems far-fetched. I’ve worked in hospitals since 1977. Can’t see how you’d get an entire medical team and all the staff to participate in a conspiracy like that, even if someone suggested it. There are very strict criteria. I have known doctors from time to time who were inept, but typically not at the level of a transplant surgeon.
Always worked in ICU’s.I think bad things happen in some hospitals and I am curious as to what the story is, but I simply can’t believe it is as reported in this version or any of the linked articles.
Welcome to obamacare!
You’ve apparently been comatose for awhile. Welcome to “for profit” medicine.
Just a crazy theory here, in reply to Alli.
What if Burns had talked (out of the record) to people in the hospital about her taking her life and wanting her organs to be donated.. That would explain failing to administrate her the charcoal, rush to harvest organs and the family refusing to sue afterwards.
I know, sound like the plot of Seven Pounds, but it does fit, doesn’t it..
Do I smell an extraordinaire business opportunity here?….
Sorry, it is akin to Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in that NY is Pirate Territory. And, as I said on my prior comments about Pirate Territories: Don’t go in on land or by sea and if you fly over, please flush, twice over NYC
I think you’ve made a mistake running this story. This story makes no sense. You can’t see brain waves on a CT scan. You would not discontinue life support if you were planning on harvesting organs. There is no way that the transplant team would not recognize that she was not dead if she was breathing over the vent, and moving her tongue, and her feet. I work in a Neuro and Trauma ICU where we deal with brain death and organ donation on a regular basis. The LifeSite News article you link to is hogwash. I have no idea what the story is with this woman and this hospital, but this piece and the stories to which you link strike me as typical media misunderstanding of medicine.
Wait – was this hospital run by Republican legislators from North Carolina or Texas? That might make it believable.