Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Mother of four bleeds to death Monday after artery is severed during abortion

Here's the coverage:

  • Queens clinic A1 Medicine probed after Alexandra Nunez is fatally injured while undergoing abortion
  • Alexandra Nuñez Dies After Artery Inadvertently Severed During Abortion in Queens, NY Medical Facility
  • Death at NYC abortion clinic investigated
  • Alexandra Nuñez Dies After Artery Inadvertently Severed During Abortion in Queens, NY Medical Facility
  • Death at NYC abortion clinic investigated
  • Details Emerge on Hispanic New York Woman Killed in Botched Legal Abortion
  • ‘Nothing Happened Here’ – Except Fatally Botched Abortion

    Police and health officials are investigating the death of 37-year-old Alexandra Nunez after an abortion performed at A1 Medicine in Jackson Heights, Queens on Monday. Operation Rescue describes the facility as "located in a run-down building in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood," and was operated by Salomon Epstein.

    The abortion was performed at 3:30 p.m. on January 25, 2010. Alexandra began bleeding heavily and was transported by ambulance to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she died. The source of the fatal bleeding was traced to a severed artery.

    Alexandra was a single mom from New Jersey. She had told her family that she was going to a doctor's office in Newark for a procedure to remove a cyst. Her 19-year-old daughter, Daisy Davila, told the New York Daily News, "I'm upset because I never got a chance to say goodbye. She didn't want anyone to go with her. I made dinner and lunch ,,, hoping she would come back."

    An employee at A1 insisted that all had gone well at their facility. "The patient was transferred to the hospital, she didn't die at the clinic. Nothing happened here."

    Nothing happened. Except that a woman was fatally injured. It's like the thank you note that Steve Lichtenberg sent for the referral after Deanna Bell's death: "Uneventful D&E". A dead patient. "Uneventful." "Nothing happened."

    A1 was an ambulatory surgical facility doing abortions and plastic surgery.

    Alexandra's family indicated that she opposed abortion, which is likely the reason for her secrecy.
  • 19 comments:

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    Well we'll know more about this when the investigation concludes, but it looks like this patient was very very unlucky.

    Someone this unlucky, if she hadn't been getting an abortion, she would likely have been killed in a traffic accident, or had a flower-pot fall on her head, or something like that.

    Unknown said...

    The more things change, the more they stay the same. This happened in the same gritty area - Roosevelt Ave/Queens - as the gruesome Guadalupe Negron abortion back in '93. Interesting to know if this was also a 2nd trimester.

    Christina Dunigan said...

    OC, that's the lamest excuse for letting a patient bleed to death I've encountered yet.

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    GG, these things happen sometimes, EVEN if you the doc do everything you're supposed to do. There is no cure for bad luck.

    Aaron Taylor said...

    But her artery wasn't cut while she walked down the street. This accident required someone to be wielding a sharp implement in the vicinity of her vital organs. Yes, these things do happen sometimes. If having a murder on one's conscience isn't enough, the increased risk of severed arteries is just one more reason not to have an abortion!

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    Aaronandbrighid, you're more likely to suffer a deadly injury giving birth than while having an abortion. More than TEN TIMES more likely!

    Christina Dunigan said...

    OC, when was it that the CDC noted that there was no legitimate medical justification for allowing an abortion patient to bleed to death? I can look it up, but you're the expert. With the means on hand to detect bleeding, determine the cause, and quickly address the bleeding with transfusions, no patient need bleed to death from an abortion IF HER ABORTIONIST IS DOING HIS JOB AS HER DOCTOR.

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    Christina, there is such a thing as INTERNAL bleeding. You don't see the blood until the autopsy.

    Christina Dunigan said...

    I'm sure that the folks at the CDC were fully aware of the possibility of internal bleeding. And a competent physician doesn't need for the patient to be lying in a puddle of blood to recognize that there is serious blood loss. Patients DO show symptoms of internal bleeding. Even EMTs are trained to watch for signs such as poor perfusion, low pulse ox, and -- when the patient is beginning to decompensate -- rapid pulse and falling blood pressure. A trained recovery room nurse -- which an outpatient surgical center certainly should have on duty -- would be even more highly trained than an EMT to monitor the patient and detect signs of internal bleeding.

    Are you saying that the typical abortion doctor isn't as well trained as an ordinary EMT?

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    No, but the typical abortion doc has more to do than hang out with the patients, waiting for the one in a hundred-thousand who has a problem like this one.

    Christina Dunigan said...

    He has better things to do than to make sure his patients are adequately monitored during recovery so that they don't die from their complications?

    Unknown said...

    (Courier News)

    ALEXANDRA NUNEZ

    AGE: 37 PLAINFIELD

    Alexandra Nunez, 37, died on January 25, 2010. She was born on February 4, 1972. Alexandra was a kind, caring, generous person, who will be sadly missed by all who knew her.

    Alexandra is survived by her beloved parents, Beatriz and Rodrigo Jimenez of Plainfield, NJ; her loving children, Jonathan, Matthew, David, and Daisy; (3) brothers.

    A Funeral Mass will be held on Friday, January 29, 2010 at 10:00 am at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Plainfield, NJ. Burial will take place in Somerset Hills Memorial Park, Basking Ridge, NJ. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Bongiovi Funeral Home, 416 Bell Avenue, Raritan, NJ 08869, (908-725-1887).

    "Forever In Our Hearts"

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    Had better things to do than spend time on one-in-a-hundred-thousand dangers.

    Christina Dunigan said...

    Glad to know that you don't think abortion facilities need anybody with training to monitor patients in recovery.

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    I think that, and so do all serious health-professionals! Abortions are too safe. Monitoring the patients individually would be a waste of time--a trained professional's time. No point in spending time looking for something that only happens in one out of a hundred-thousand cases (or less).

    Sometimes people have heart attacks and die, in church, during prayer. So, should we therefore require churches to keep doctors on staff, and carefully monitor everyone who prays in the church for possible heart attacks? If not, why not?

    Christina Dunigan said...

    1. A nurse overseeing a recovery room monitors all the patients. Pulse oxymeters do have alarms on them, and the nurse can check vitals on more than one patient in a 15 minute period. Nobody's advocating an RN for each patient. Just competent professional monitoring post-op. Which would catch things like internal bleeding. Or are you disagreeing with the CDC on this one?

    2. Since when do people perform surgery in church such that they need nurses to monitor the parishioners?

    Tonal Bliss said...

    "I think that, and so do all serious health-professionals!"

    OC, I'm a "serious" Registered Nurse and I don't think that.

    What is your job/career (other than blowjobs)?

    OperationCounterstrike said...

    SegaMon, my apologies. I should have said "All serious professionals who are not brain-dead".

    Tonal Bliss said...

    Care to prove your hypothesis?

    I can prove to you that I'm not brain dead. I passed two NCLEX examinations (for vocational and then registered nursing). I have a B average in two nursing programs. I have a B average in all science classes. I was first chair clarinetist at my college.

    A college, two nursing schools, and two boards of nursing think that I'm not brain-dead. Yet... you do. Who is the one that is more credible here? I wonder...

    Why don't you prove to me that you're not brain dead by telling me what you do for a living. You refuse to do so; why do you do that?