Mother Says Son Retarded by Routine Tonsillectomy

Because little Mark A. Flores often had tonsillitis, his mother, Dora T. Buruel, said she followed the advice of doctors and took him to Santa Ana-Tustin Community Hospital for a routine tonsillectomy on Aug. 13, 1979.

“I brought him in and they brought him back to me on a stretcher,” she said last September when her attorney was discussing a possible settlement with lawyers for the hospital and two physicians.

Was Blind, Mother Said

Her son, now 11, suffered brain damage because of a lack of oxygen in his blood during the operation, court documents indicate. Mark regained consciousness at home but was blind for four months and has since had difficulty learning, now functioning at a 6-year-old’s level, his mother said.

Buruel was upset last September because it was taking so long to go to trial in the suit she filed for her son, herself and her former husband against the hospital, surgeon Billie Reasoner of Santa Ana and anesthesiologist Jeanne E. Gannon, who practiced in the Santa Ana area.

After a Dec. 18 settlement with Gannon, though, the Flores family went to trial last Thursday against the hospital and Reasoner.

Anesthesiologist Sued

And Tuesday, the hospital sued Gannon to seek payment for any money it might have to pay the Flores family if the jury finds the hospital liable.

Among the claims against the remaining defendants are that the hospital negligently allowed Gannon to practice anesthesiology, that its emergency procedures were inadequate and that Gannon was acting as a hospital employee although she was not one.

Reasoner testified Tuesday that he noticed blue blood, a sign of a lack of oxygen, during the surgery on Mark, and told Gannon, who he said should have known about such problems before they developed.

The surgeon said he began applying emergency cardiac resuscitation when Mark, 5 years old at the time, stopped breathing. The boy did not respond until after a fourth electric shock to his chest, Reasoner added.

Gannon, who also testified Tuesday, has maintained that she was not negligent and that she maintained the standard of care followed by anesthesiologists in the area, said her attorney, Byron J. Beam of Santa Ana.

Mark was in and out of comas for the month he remained in the hospital and was taken home comatose, the surgeon said. Last fall, Mark’s mother quoted a nurse as saying, “Just maintenance now,” referring to her expectation that the boy would remain in a coma.

But the boy rebounded to the point where others now generally think he is “just fine,” Buruel said. “But that’s the problem. He’s not. He’s in special classes in a regular school. He reads a tiny bit. He can’t even ride his bike.”

She also blames the medical accident for leading to her divorce from Rudy P. Flores.

The settlement with Gannon provides Mark with $150,000 cash this month, two annuities that pay a total of about $2,500 a month for life and, if he lives until 60, another $2.32 million in periodic payments. The package, which also includes $25,000 for Buruel and $114,420 in attorney fees and expenses, totals about $561,000, according to a court document.

Gannon, meantime, was denied staff privileges for about a year, was reinstated and sued the hospital for denying her the opportunity to work. In December, 1983, she won $2,244,660 in a jury verdict, which is on appeal. Gannon now lives in a Pittsburgh suburb.