More sad safe-n-legal anniversaries

On June 21, 1985, 17-year-old Deborah Lozinski's parents filed suit against Dr. Scheininger, Dr. Sinha, and other staff at Medical Care Center in Woodbridge, New Jersey. Their daughter had been in a coma for two months following an abortion. Deborah's parents said that the staff failed to properly screen and examine Deborah prior to her abortion. They also alleged that staff failed to properly monitor their daughter's vital signs during the abortion, failing to quickly detect and properly treat respiratory difficulty. As a result, Deborah suffered the brain damage that had caused her coma.

Shortly after midnight on June 22, a hospital staffer checked on Deborah and found her dead; she evidently had died shortly before midnight.

More recently, 32-year-old Kelly Morse of Vermont traveled with her husband to Hillcrest Women's Medical Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for an abortion on June 19, 1996. Dr. Delhi Elmore Thweatt, Jr., performed the abortion.

Even though Kelly had notified Hillcrest staff that she had asthma and was allergic to the "caine" medications, including Lidocaine, Thweatt administered 12 cc's of 1 percent Lidocaine to Kelly at about 11 a.m. Kelly immediately had trouble breathing. A licensed practical nurse got Kelly's inhaler from her purse and helped her to use it, but Kelly reported that it was not helping. She became very agitated because of her difficulty in drawing breath.

Thweatt continued with the abortion, completing it in about four minutes, and spent some time providing ineffectual care to Kelly before having an ambulance summoned.

According to the suit filed by her husband, "No one started an IV. No respiration rate was recorded, no pulse was checked and no blood pressure was measured. No EKG was applied. No cardiac monitoring was conducted. No pulse oximeter was applied. No intubation or emergency tracheotomy was performed. No oxygen was administered. Kelly continued to agitate in fear, desperately gasping for air, and remained blue in color. Defendant Thweatt just stood there with a stethoscope in hand and listened to Kelly's breathing and wheezing progressively worsen."

Paramedics arrived within five minutes of the call, just as a staff member was running outside to summon Kelly's husband. Kelly's husband reported that he went in with the ambulance crew to find his wife, naked and blue-black from lack of oxygen, lying on a table that was halfway out of the examination room into the hallway.

The paramedics put a breathing tube into Kelly, properly administered medications, and performed CPR as they transported Kelly to nearby Polyclinic Medical Center, where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Her condition continued to deteriorate, and she was pronounced dead on June 22. Her two children, a boy and a girl, were left motherless.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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