DALLAS — The trial for Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz, the Dallas anesthesiologist accused of tampering with IV bags, continued Thursday in federal court.
Federal prosecutors allege Ortiz poisoned the bags the summer of 2022 where he worked at Baylor Scott and White Surgicare North Dallas, resulting in serious cardiac emergencies for several patients and even the death of a fellow anesthesiologist who took an IV bag home to treat her dehydration.
One of Ortiz’s alleged victims is a young man named Jack, who went to the facility in August 2022 for a rhinoplasty following an accident involving a motorbike. Jack’s anesthesiologist during that procedure, Dr. Saad Hussain, was called to the stand on Thursday morning.
Hussain told jurors about a mid-surgery intense blood pressure spike that came out of nowhere, seemingly had no medical explanation and threatened Jack’s life.
He explained, “[Jack’s] condition did not make sense…nothing made sense.”
Jack was transferred in critical condition to a nearby hospital, he said, and Hussain recalled the emotional conversation with his parents there.
“I had to go to them and say, ‘I don’t know what’s happening to your kid…I don’t know if he’s going to survive,'” he said.
He said he kept looking for evidence of a heart attack, for example, or any other medical episode that could have caused the incredible blood pressure spike in Jack’s system, but testified he couldn’t find evidence of anything.
“Clinically nothing made sense. Any presentation I needed from him to back up a medical theory didn’t work,” he said.
Hussain explained, when he later saw the IV bags, and saw a needle mark on one, “it made sense why.”
During his cross examination, Ortiz’s defense attorneys pressed Hussain on whether any of the drugs he administered to Jack could have caused the spike, but he said they couldn’t have. He also testified Jack’s pre-existing hypertension could not be responsible either.
But perhaps the prosecutor’s most captivating witness of the day was Dr. Chad Marsden, an anesthesiologist for another patient said to have suffered one of these cardiac episodes. Marsden’s patient was a woman in her fifties who’d come in for a tummy tuck.
Testifying about the medical episode, Marsden told jurors that when he noticed his patient's sudden spike in blood pressure, he began giving her medicine to reverse it.
“It seemed every time we gave a medicine to bring blood pressure down, the pressure went up and up and up,” he said.
Marsden testified that he kept checking the labels on the drugs he’d been using to make sure the medication was labeled correctly and not expired.
He called the situation “very confusing, and frankly, very scary. Very serious."
"I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
Marsden continued to explain how he was “baffled” and “disturbed.” He said his brain “would not leave this alone, it was like everything was upside down.”
Marsden told jurors he went home and tried to think of a possible explanation. He said he spoke on the phone with the patient’s plastic surgeon the next day, and remembers saying to her, “if you were to call me up next week and tell me they did an investigation and found out someone was putting epinephrine in an IV bag, I would be disturbed but not surprised.”
He testified he set up a meeting a few days later with the hospital administrator to go over the charts of the other affected patients to see if his theory might carry any weight. When he arrived for the meeting at the facility, he said there was another patient experiencing a cardiac episode -- it was the 18-year-old, Jack.
Marsden testified he ran into Jack’s operating room and told Jack’s anesthesiologist, Hussain, he thinks there may be a problem with the IV bags.
He said they switched out Jack’s current bag for a new one and his blood pressure soon went down. Marsden testified he instructed everyone to not take anything from the operating room. They recovered IV bags and their casings, he said, and discovered one of them appeared to be punctured with a needle.
Later in the afternoon, an older gentleman who is also an alleged victim of Ortiz testified. He said he came to the surgical facility for a hand surgery after shattering his wrist on a cruise with his girlfriend to Norway. He told jurors his health has significantly declined since his operation at the center.
Day 5 of Ortiz’s trial is set to begin at 9 a.m. Friday.
