O'Connell v. Holy Family Hospital
Case Date: 06/30/1997
Court: 1st District Appellate
Docket No: 1-96-2579
June 30, 1997 No. 1-96-2579 MICHAEL O'DONNELL AND KATHRYN HUNT, ) APPEAL FROM THE as Co-Administrators of the Estate ) CIRCUIT COURT OF OF RYAN O'DONNELL, Deceased, ) COOK COUNTY. ) Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) ) v. ) ) HOLY FAMILY HOSPITAL, a corporation, ) HONORABLE and DR. MUSTAFA KEMAL YON, ) RONALD C. RILEY, ) JUDGE PRESIDING. Defendants-Appellees. ) PRESIDING JUSTICE WOLFSON delivered the opinion of the court: The plaintiffs in this case say that 12 minutes was the difference between life and death for their son, Ryan. They also say that the actions or omissions of Dr. Mustafa Kemal Yon during that brief span of time are what caused Ryan's death. The jury found otherwise. This court must decide, among other things, whether the jury's verdict for the defendants was against the manifest weight of the evidence. We affirm. FACTS In a third amended complaint, Michael O'Donnell and Kathryn Hunt (Ryan's parents) alleged that Holy Family Hospital was negligent because it failed to provide timely and competent resuscitative care to Ryan; because the hospital failed to provide a neonatologist within 30 minutes of the obstetrician's decision to perform an emergency Caesarian section (C-section); because the hospital violated its Maternity and Neonatal Service Plan in several ways; and because the hospital failed to have in place a reliable means of communicating with its on-call neonatologists. Plaintiffs further alleged that Dr. Yon, as agent, and the hospital, as principal, were negligent because: Dr. Yon failed to properly intubate and ventilate Ryan; Dr. Yon failed to monitor or have others monitor Ryan's heart rate; Dr. Yon failed to perform cardiac compressions on Ryan; Dr. Yon failed to resuscitate Ryan; and Dr. Yon failed to timely anesthetize Kathryn (Ryan's mother) in preparation for the C- section. Although the trial in this case lasted several days, much of the evidence focused on the 12 minutes between 11:10 and 11:22 a.m. on May 22, 1991. This time period was important because, while there was some discrepancy in the records, it was generally accepted that Kathryn Hunt gave birth to a son, Ryan, by Caesarean section (C-section) at Holy Family Hospital at 11:09 a.m.; that Dr. Yon, Kathryn's anesthesiologist for the C-section, took over resuscitation efforts on the infant at 11:10 a.m.; and that Ryan was clinically dead when the neonatologist, Dr. Go, arrived in the delivery room at 11:22 a.m. Resuscitation efforts continued for nearly two hours after Dr. Go arrived and Ryan was not pronounced dead until 1:15 p.m. But what transpired during those 12 minutes and whether anything Dr. Yon did or did not do during that time deviated from the standard of care and proximately caused Ryan's death were the main issues at trial. Kathryn Hunt was 41 |