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Wrong Anesthetic Killed Liposuction Patient, Family Says

A Philadelphia woman died because she was given the wrong anesthetic in preparation for a liposuction procedure, causing her heart to stop, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in a Pennsylvania court.

The family and estate of Tracey Jordan, 39, filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas nearly a year after her death at Philadelphia's Nazareth Hospital.

According to the complaint, Jordan went to the hospital to undergo breast reduction, liposuction and "tummy tuck" procedures. She had taken out a $22,000 home equity loan to have the surgery.

In preparation for liposuction, patients are injected with a tumescent fluid containing lidocaine to facilitate the fat suctioning and to minimize pain.

Jordan's family says she was injected with a fluid containing bupivacaine, an anesthetic that is 10 times as toxic as lidocaine and is specifically contraindicated for liposuction.

Jordan went into cardiac arrest after receiving 60 milliliters of fluid containing bupivacaine Feb. 12, 2007, the suit says. She died the next day.

Blood sampling from her autopsy revealed dangerously high levels of the drug, according to the suit.

Bupivacaine and lidocaine come in similar bottles, but the fluid Jordan received was administered through a computerized machine that records bar code information on medication vials, the suit says.

Hospital employees should have checked the bottle and labels as well as the machine's recordings and taken other precautions to prevent the mix-up and to detect the cause of Jordan's distress after the bupivacaine was administered, the family says.

Jordan is survived by her husband and daughter.

The family alleges negligence, wrongful-death and survival claims against the hospital, parent Mercy Health System, Dr. Algird R. Mameniskis and his practice, Rittenhouse Plastic Surgery.

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