Authorities said Thursday that a Dallas anesthesiologist had been detained on suspicion of injecting narcotics into bags of intravenous fluids at the surgical center where he works, which resulted in the death of one of his coworkers and many patients experiencing cardiac problems.
According to a statement from the office of the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Texas, Dr. Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr. was detained on Wednesday in connection with a criminal complaint that claimed he intentionally adulterated drugs and caused death by tampering with consumer products. He might receive a life sentence if found guilty.
On Thursday, Ortiz, 59, was still being held without bond in the Dallas County jail. His attorney was not included in the record.
A 55-year-old female coworker of Ortiz died on June 21 after treating her own dehydration with an IV bag of what she believed to be saline that she had taken from the surgical center, according to the criminal complaint. A lethal amount of bupivacaine, a nerve-blocking medication that is seldom abused but frequently used when an anesthetic is administered, is what caused her death, according to an autopsy.
During routine sinus surgery on August 24, an 18-year-old male patient had a cardiac emergency; he was intubated and taken to an intensive care unit. Prosecutors claim that bupivacaine, the stimulant epinephrine, and the topical anesthetic lidocaine were found in the fluid from a saline bag used during the patient’s surgery. These medications may have been the cause of the patient’s acute symptoms.
The employees at the surgical center came to the conclusion that the instances pointed to a pattern of purposeful adulteration of the IV bags used at the facility. According to the complaint, they discovered 10 additional unanticipated cardiac emergencies that happened during usually routine surgeries between May and August, which was an exceptionally high rate of problems over such a short time.
The occurrences started two days after Ortiz received notice that a disciplinary investigation was being conducted into an incident in which he allegedly “deviated from the standard of care” during an anesthetic procedure while a patient had a medical emergency. The center was seeking to “crucify” Ortiz, who had a history of disciplinary procedures taken against him, according to complaints he made to other doctors about the disciplinary action.
The complaint claims that none of the instances happened when Ortiz was on vacation, only during the times he provided services at the facility.
Agents once saw him move swiftly from an operating room to an IV bag warmer, put a bag inside, and then search the empty hallway before leaving. This incident was caught on camera. A little over an hour later, a 56-year-old woman underwent scheduled cosmetic surgery and experienced a cardiac emergency as a result of having a bag from the warmer used during the procedure, claims the complaint.
Agents watched Ortiz exit his operating room carrying an IV bag hidden in what seemed to be a paper folder on another occasion, switch the bag with one from the warmer, and then leave. After a bag from the warmer was utilized during another patient’s scheduled cosmetic surgery about 30 minutes later, a 54-year-old lady experienced a cardiac emergency.
