A Colorado teen went into cardiac arrest and suffered irreversible brain damage just as she was about to undergo breast implant surgery — and now her family is blaming doctors for the botched procedure.
Dr. Geoffrey Kim and nurse anesthetist Rex Meeker are accused of failing to call 911 for nearly 5½ hours after Emmalyn Nguyen’s heart stopped on Aug. 1. The teen never even made it into surgery.
“They leave her on the operating table for 5½ hours and don’t call 911 for 5½ hours while Emmalyn’s mother sits in the waiting room unaware of what’s happening,” the Nguyens’ lawyer, David Woodruff, told KDVR.
After graduating high school, Nguyen decided to get a breast augmentation at Colorado Aesthetics & Plastic Surgery to improve her image, the station reported.
She was being prepped for the 2 p.m. surgery when she went into cardiac arrest — and was found unconscious 15 minutes later, Woodruff said.
Staffers used CPR to try to revive the teen but she never fully regained consciousness. Meeker finally called 911 more than five hours after Nguyen was first given anesthesia, the family’s lawsuit said.
“What should have been a very standard procedure turned into a nightmare for her and her family,” said Woodruff.
Nguyen’s parents are now suing Kim and Meeker, alleging gross negligence.
The girl’s mother, Lynn Fam, said she was told during the $6,000 procedure that no complications had occurred.
“He said ‘Everything is fine, Emmalyn is fine, everything is good,’” Fam told KCNC, recalling what Kim told her. “‘She’s young, she’s healthy, she’ll be OK, it’s just taking her long to wake up.'”
Nguyen was taken to a hospital before being transferred 22 days later to a rehab center, where she still receives continual care in a “minimally conscious state” and is unable to speak, walk or eat on her own. She suffered brain damage and is unlikely to return to her previous condition, the lawsuit said.
“She will remain in a nursing home essentially non-functional with someone feeding her through a tube for the next 50 years,” Woodruff told KDVR.
An attorney for Kim declined to comment when reached by the station, saying the physician is “not at liberty” to speak about any specific patient.
An attorney representing Meeker, meanwhile, said he provided “reasonable and within the standard of care” during the procedure.
“We are confident that the facts will bear this out,” attorney Douglas Wolaske told the station.