Receptionist for Sued Doctor Tells of Rushing Baby to Hospital

Receptionist Juanita Palomino remembers that the 4-month-old baby boy obviously was “hurting” when his parents brought him to Dr. Stephen Fibel’s office in Irvine.

After Fibel briefly examined young Juan Huerta, he told her to take the baby to a hospital “right away,” Palomino said, and she responded immediately.

Testified in Court

Testifying in court Tuesday, Palomino acknowledged that she had no medical training, no knowledge of cardiopulminary or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and that she was helpless when, 10 minutes from the hospital, Juan stopped breathing.

When Juan reached the emergency room at Childrens Hospital of Orange County, he was in full cardiac arrest. After 35 minutes of “heroic resuscitation,” he was revived--but remains severely and permanently brain damaged today, unable to move his limbs, wracked with seizures, and in constant need of care, according to the file in the Orange County Superior Court case.

Juan’s parents, Feliciano and Guadalupe Huerta of Santa Ana, are seeking $10 million in damages against Fibel in an Orange County Superior Court trial that began Tuesday.

Fibel’s decision to send the infant to the hospital is central to the case. Peter J. McNulty, lawyer for the Huertas, contends that Juan should have received constant medical care--that Fibel should have called paramedics or should have accompanied the infant to the hospital himself.

Palomino testified that when the infant arrived at Fibel’s office on Dec. 9, 1980, he was breathing weakly, was ashen in color, and “just laid there and kind of moaned.”

“Dr. Fibel told me: ‘You need to take this patient right away to the hospital. It’s an emergency,’ ” Palomino testified.

Palomino quickly complied, with Feliciano Huerta driving. She had never before received such an order from Fibel, she said.

The drive to the hospital in Orange took 20 minutes. One block away, they were stopped dead in traffic. Palomino grabbed the baby and ran to the emergency room, she testified.

In pretrial depositions, Fibel acknowledged that nothing had prevented him from calling paramedics, or accompanying Huerta. Asked why he hadn’t, he responded: “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

Fibel’s decision was a mistake, his lawyer, Mark S. Rader, told the jurors Tuesday.

“It was certainly a mistake to transport the child in the way he did,” Rader said.

But Fibel’s mistake is not the same thing as malpractice, Rader insisted. Juan Herta’s extensive medical problems, stemming from a premature birth, meant that the infant already was doomed to a less than full life, Rader said.

“Now, the future holds nothing for Juan,” Rader said. “The question is, what did the future hold for Juan in the first place?”

Juan was born Aug. 13, 1980. Fibel “provided all the emergency care at birth and made all the decisions,” Rader told jurors. The infant was blue at birth, suffering from suffocation, lung disease, bleeding in the brain, hydrocephalus, a potentially deadly liver ailment and metabolic acidosis, which can cause brain damage, Rader said. Seven days after birth, Juan underwent major arterial surgery, the attorney told jurors.

Rader said the case is “about whether he would have had much of an opportunity in this world.”

Complicating the case is uncertainty over whether Juan’s distress was the result of a vaccination he received the day before for diptheria petussis and tetanus.

The DPT vaccine is known to have serious side effects in a small percentage of cases. Connaught Laboratories Inc. of Seattle, originally a co-defendant in the lawsuit, settled before trial for an undisclosed amount.

Lived in Institutions

Since his brush with death, Juan has lived in institutions: first the hospital, then Hylond Home of Santa Ana and now Fairview State Hospital. Records in the court file show that state authorities have claimed more than $260,000 against any judgment to cover previous Medi-Cal payments for Juan’s care.

Juan’s care already costs $60,000 a year, according to McNulty. With inflation, Juan needs $10 million to purchase an annuity that will cover those costs for his lifetime, McNulty said.

The trial, expected to take two weeks, is before Superior Judge Prentiss Moore.