DALLAS — Wednesday in federal court, the trial continued for Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz, the Dallas anesthesiologist accused of poisoning IV bags with dangerous drugs in 2022 when he worked at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare North Dallas.
Prosecutors say a fellow anesthesiologist died after taking home one of the tainted bags, and several others, patients at the facility, suffered severe cardiac events after receiving fluids from other bags. Ortiz denied those allegations and has pleaded not guilty.
The first witness to take the stand Wednesday was Elizabeth Burks, the former administrator at the Surgicare facility. Defense attorneys pressed her on several incidents the government has tied to Ortiz, challenging whether those patients had pre-existing conditions and whether they experienced truly severe cardiac events.
Perhaps the most emotional testimony of the day came from John Kaspar, Melanie Kaspar's widower. Prosecutors say Melanie Kaspar was also an anesthesiologist at the same facility and died after taking a tainted IV bag home from work to treat her dehydration.
John Kaspar testified that on June 21, 2022, his wife came home and asked for his help to administer an IV bag. Once she had it in, he told jurors, she went to the back of their property to an apartment they had on top of their garage -- they'd been sleeping there, he said, while they renovated their home.
Five to six minutes later, he testified, she called him screaming, "no words" coming out, just screaming.
Kaspar said when he got to the back of the property he saw his wife collapse. As they waited for an ambulance, he said his wife screamed "my arm, my chest!" John said he looked down and saw the IV bag. "Is it the IV bag?" He asked.
Kaspar testified his wife said, "no, it's my arm and chest."
Through sobs, Kaspar told jurors, "I'll have regrets forever I didn't pull the IV bag out of her arm."
When paramedics arrived to help, Kaspar said he learned his wife died after they stopped CPR attempts. One said to another, he testified, "OK we're gonna call it."
Several people were seen crying in the courtroom during that testimony.
Defense attorneys pushed John on whether his wife got the IV bag from that facility for certain. They also asked him where the IV bag and wrapper ended up, but he said he didn't know.
Jurors also heard directly from two of Ortiz's alleged victims. A woman who at the time was 54 and was in for an abdominoplasty and scar removal from a previous C-section. She said her surgery went well but was taken into a second after she had some internal bleeding. She sobbed as she recalled waking up after the severe cardiac episode that ensued during that second procedure.
"I remember thinking, I cannot die," she cried. "Because I lost a parent when I was a teenager."
She sobbed as she told jurors how fearful she was she'd leave her daughter without a mother. She also testified she was in the ICU for five days and was so traumatized by the near death-experience she couldn't work, her daughter needed intense therapy.
Jurors also heard from Ortiz's youngest alleged victim, a then 18-year-old boy who had a severe cardiac episode in the middle of a rhinoplasty he said he needed following an accident on a motorbike.
He told jurors he woke up the night after the surgery, unable to talk, move, or breathe. He called it the "worst night of [his] life," and said he was afraid to go to sleep because, "I thought if I went to sleep, I would die."
Jack told jurors when he woke up, he "really didn't have a nose," because the cardiac episode was so severe, he said, surgeons couldn't finish the rhinoplasty at the time. Ortiz's defense attorneys pointed to the fact Jack had high blood pressure before his surgery, and also questioned him about the settlement his family reached with the hospital following the surgery.
His mother also testified about the horror she felt that day.
Jurors will be back in court at 9 a.m. Thursday for day 4 of the trial.