Ala Jury Awards $15M In Propofol Overdose Death Case


On June 25, 2012, a Mobile, Alabama, state court jury returned a $15 million verdict against Springhill Memorial Hospital for the wrongful death of a 45-year-old married mother of three. Theresa Oden had walked into the hospital on*November 7, 2008 for a diagnostic cardiac catheterization, the results of which landed her in the operating room later that same morning for open heart surgery. Her coronary artery bypass graft surgery went without a hitch and she was sent to*Springhill’s Cardiac Recovery Unit (CRU) where she was stable without any complications. That is until a new to that unit staff member dialed in the wrong settings on an intravenous pump controlling the rate of infusion of the powerful anesthetic/sedative propofol.
The plaintiff argued that rather than the “light sedation” dose of propofol that was ordered, the nurse administered an anesthetizing dose which impaired or caused to cease, Oden’s breathing. The … (Continued...)



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