Dr. Nicholas Bartha settled a malpractice suit brought by a Brooklyn family whose mom died of an overdose of medication during his watch in an emergency room – and he never told them the treatment was botched.
Dr. Boom icily walked away from the woman’s stunned and sobbing children after she collapsed and died in his Brooklyn ER, where she went for a migraine, they said.
“He was cold, very cold. He wasn’t compassionate at all,” the woman’s son, Dane Pena, told The Post. “Obviously, to him it was just another day at work.”
Now a rookie NYPD cop, Pena’s digging led him to discover that his vivacious 47-year-old mother was given more than a double dose of a powerful blood-pressure drug, which rapidly killed her.
Bartha finally revealed the huge goof months later to his then-employer, Lutheran Medical Center – only after a city medical examiner autopsy requested by Pena found that his mom, Maria Arias, died of “accidental administration of excessive medication.”
Though the tragedy occurred nearly a decade ago, Pena has never forgotten Bartha’s demeanor after pronouncing his mother dead, when the distraught son and daughter asked, “Why? How?”
Bartha “threw up his hands and walked away,” Pena said.
The family’s encounter with Dr. Boom started when Pena’s mom went to her family doctor May 19, 1997, with a migraine. That doctor found Arias’ blood pressure high, so he told to her go straight to the ER.
When Arias arrived at Lutheran at 9:50 p.m., her blood pressure had risen to a dangerous level: 210/190, records show.
Hospital triage notes say Arias was immediately to be given 20 milligrams of Normodyne, the brand name for labetalol, a drug that lowers blood pressure. The drug was injected into an intravenous line at 10:05 p.m.
At 10:20 p.m., she collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. The “code team” was called to help Bartha try to resuscitate her with CPR, drugs and a chest tube because they suspected a lung had collapsed.
Bartha pronounced her dead at 11 p.m.
Meanwhile, Pena’s sister, Dianna, who had met her mom in the ER, frantically called Pena to the hospital. Pena, who lived in Sunset Park, grabbed a cab and rushed there in five minutes, but arrived seconds too late.
With his sister shrieking, Pena tried to keep his cool.
“I asked Dr. Bartha, ‘How did this happen?’ ”
Bartha replied that his mom died of cardiac arrest, adding, “There was really nothing that could be done.”
As Pena asked more questions, he said, Bartha held out his arms, palms up.
“He was speechless,” Pena said. “He just stood there. Then he left. He just walked away, like he was looking for something else to get involved in so he could avoid my questions.”
He never heard from Bartha again, but Pena began his own probe.
“I wanted to get to the bottom of what went wrong,” he said.
“Her health was good,” except for mild asthma and occasional migraines, he said of his mother. “She was very active, very energetic.”
His mom was so warm and free spirited, she hung out with her son and his friends, cooked them meals, and even went with them to dance clubs, where she loved to salsa, merengue and do other Dominican steps.
In one club, Pena recalled, someone asked about the lively, attractive brunette in his group: “Is that your girlfriend?” “No, it’s my mom!” he replied.
Pena sought the autopsy and spent weeks gathering hospital records.
Months later, the medical examiner concluded, based on toxicology tests, that Arias had died of “acute labetalol intoxication.”
At a Lutheran meeting soon after, records show, Bartha admitted, “The dose of labetalol given to the patient was in fact 50 milligrams – not 20 milligrams, as documented.”
Bartha said he gave Arias two other drugs “to counteract the anticipated side effect of the labetalol,” but her heart began to malfunction.
But Pena’s malpractice lawyer, Kathleen Kettles-Russotti, who is also a nurse, said Bartha’s explanation “didn’t make sense” because the two other drugs are for asthma.
It remains unclear who administered the overdose, Kettles-Russotti said.
But in such cases, she added, either the doctor gives the injection or should closely supervise a nurse, depending on hospital policy.
“They were dead in the water, and they knew it,” the lawyer said.
Lutheran quickly settled the 1999 wrongful-death suit against the hospital and Bartha. Pena and his sister each got about $50,000, after lawyer fees.
Pena, now 35, used some of the money to buy a headstone for his mom’s grave.
Pena says he misses his mom more since becoming a dad last year.
That Bartha might blow up his Upper East Side town house to avoid paying his ex-wife befits a doctor who seemed as unfeeling toward his patients as toward his own family, Pena said.
“He only cared about himself – and to hell with everyone else,” Pena said.
Additional reporting by Janon Fisher