Civil trial begins for doc accused in child death
By Craig Kapitan
Updated 10:57 p.m., Thursday, September 20, 2012
When 22-month-old Maddoux Cordova woke up from a routine outpatient dental procedure three years ago crying, thrashing and trying to remove his intravenous line, Dr. Brian Seastrunk approved two doses of morphine instead of Advil.
The anesthesiologist's decision, along with his failure to closely monitor the boy after the narcotic was administered, led to the child's death, attorneys for Cordova's parents told a civil court jury Thursday as testimony began in a malpractice trial.
Seastrunk's attorneys have countered that the nurse who requested and administered the drug — and therefore the hospital that hired her — instead is to blame. The hospital also has been sued but is not a party in the trial.
“As a doctor, the rule is you don't expose your patient to needless risk,” plaintiff's attorney Beth Janicek said during an opening statement in 37th state District Court. “That's what they live by. It was needless to order such a powerful drug.”
Cordova was found not breathing by his grandmother the afternoon of Dec. 11, 2009, about five hours after he was discharged from Village Specialty Surgical Center, according to court documents. He was revived by emergency responders but was brain dead, and on the day after Christmas the decision was made to take him off life support.
Attorneys haven't yet revealed to jurors what amount of damages they will ask for, but they are seeking money for Cordova's funeral and hospital bills as well as the child's pain and suffering and his parents' mental anguish and loss of companionship.
Seastrunk approved the morphine while in another dental procedure, assuming by the sounds of the crying that the boy was in pain but not checking himself, Janicek told the jury.
Nurse Cynthia Jones then administered both doses within 10 minutes of each other, before the first round had time to take effect, plaintiffs attorneys alleged.
Seastrunk should have noticed the warning signs before allowing the toddler to be sent home, they said.
“Nurse Jones may not have done everything right, but Dr. Seastrunk is the one who made the orders,” Janicek said. “This was his patient the whole time.”
Seastrunk had a right to assume that the nurse was competent to monitor patients, defense attorney George Brin responded.
“The evidence will show he is very much a caring physician,” Brin said. “When he transferred the patient to the nurses provided by the hospital in the recovery room, Maddoux was stable. (Jones) assumed care of this little boy.”
Brin described the morphine dosage his client approved as “extremely conservative.”
“The idea that Dr. Seastrunk used a sledgehammer on this child — or the pharmaceutical equivalent of that — is just not right,” he said.
The defense also pointed out that there have been three “confusing, often contradictory set of positions” concerning why the child died.
The first two, Brin said, are that the nurse either gave the doses too close together or she accidently overdosed him with more than the doctor prescribed.
But Brin repeatedly referred to a report by the medical examiner's office that amounted to, “We don't know.”
ckapitan@express-news.net
