$24 Million Awarded in Malpractice Suit : Courts: Surgery that resulted from routine diagnostic test left Huntington Beach woman blind and paralyzed.

A 31-year-old Huntington Beach woman who was left blind, paralyzed and unable to speak after surgery in what started as a routine diagnostic test will receive about $24 million over her life under a malpractice verdict believed to be the largest in Orange County history.

A Santa Ana Superior Court jury deliberated more than two days before reaching the verdict last week in favor of Jennifer Hamel. A marketing employee, Hamel suffered severe brain damage two years ago while undergoing a test to determine why she was experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding, according to Cornelius P. Bahan, an attorney representing Hamel and her parents.

The jury, in a unanimous vote, split liability between the OutPatient Surgery Center in Huntington Beach and Dr. William Keel, who was accused of leaving Hamel in the middle of the surgical crisis under the assumption she was having a problem with anesthesia, Bahan said. The jury exonerated the anesthesiologist of any liability.

Bahan said Hamel remains in a “helpless” state in a Long Beach facility. But, he said the award means her parents, Mike and Joyce Hamel of South Gate, will now be able to bring her home under the care of full-time nurses.

“It’s everyone’s absolute worst nightmare,” Bahan said. “She’s incapacitated and can’t communicate . . . she’s essentially trapped.”

An attorney for OutPatient Surgery said what happened to Hamel was a tragedy and jurors were bound to be sympathetic, but he said the center should not have been held liable because its employees had no reason to believe that the doctor was doing anything unsafe.

“The doctor picked the procedure, he did not tell us he was going into an operative phase, and we were surprised,” attorney Mark Franzen said.

Steve Hillyard, an attorney for Keel, was unavailable for comment. Bahan said Keel is now practicing in Illinois.

On May 21, 1993, Hamel, then 29, went to the surgery center for tests. According to Bahan, Hamel was told she needed to undergo a quick exploratory procedure. During the procedure, Keel said, he found a large fibroid tumor in her uterus and decided, without consulting a specialist or getting Hamel’s approval, to operate, according to Bahan.

The plaintiffs contended that Keel used a high-pressure pump during the surgery that was unauthorized for such use and that the pump was filled with sterile water instead of an approved fluid to save about $5.

During the surgery, Keel allegedly cut into the wall of Hamel’s uterus and the pump pushed the sterile water into her blood system, filling her lungs with water and causing her heart to stop. Bahan said oxygen was cut off to Hamel’s brain for 15 to 30 minutes, causing severe damage that is most likely permanent.

At one point during the height of the crisis, Bahan said, the doctor left for another appointment in Newport Beach and did not return despite calls from the surgery center.

An expert says Hamel is “somewhere between a completely aware ‘locked-in patient’ and the totally unaware ‘vegetative’ patient described by the defense,” Bahan said.

The defendants contended that Hamel suffered a rare allergic reaction to a drug used routinely in the diagnostic procedures, Franzen said.