“Once I felt it, I was just screaming like, ‘Stop. I can feel it. I can feel it.’ And after that, I’m pretty sure I passed out from the pain,” Delphina Mota said, NBC New York reported on Aug. 1. (RELATED: Terminally Ill Cancer Patients Share Their Story Of Survival)
“Something like out of a horror movie,” the 26-year-old continued. “You can’t imagine. I would rather have delivered (my daughter) vaginally, with no medicine, than being cut with a knife.”
Mota and her husband filed a lawsuit on July 13 and it was first obtained by NBC 7. They claimed the problem began when Mota’s blood pressure began to drop. Three minutes after her blood pressure started falling, Mota’s doctor ordered an emergency C-section.
The anesthesiologist on call, Dr. David Seif, was paged several times to assist with the procedure but “did not respond,” according to the lawsuit. After waiting for almost ten minutes, they strapped Mota to the operating table and cut her open.
Mota’s fiance and the father of her daughter, Paul Iheanachor, told NBC 7 he could hear his future wife screaming, before she mercifully passed out.
Iheanachor claims he tried to enter the operating room to comfort Mota, “but was held back by several hospital personnel.”
“If somebody put a knife in your stomach and cut you open, and had their hands on your insides, and ripped your baby out, you know. I just tried to put myself in her shoes,” Iheanachor told NBC 7. “Just tried to wrap my mind around how it would feel to basically be gutted like a fish.”
Aaron Byzak, the chief government and external affairs officer for Tri-City Medical Center, provided a statement to NBC 7, contradicting Mota’s version of events. He said:
Patient safety and quality are the utmost priorities for Tri-City Medical Center and all of our partners. While we normally don’t comment on pending litigation, the patient’s public discussion of the care she received during her emergency C-section compels us to address this outrageous allegation. The patient was administered anesthesia prior to the surgery. We are pleased that the baby is “healthy” and “happy.”
“I was crying because I was scared, I didn’t know what was going on. I was laying there and [obstetrician Dr. Sandra Lopez] was like, ‘We have to just do it,'” Mota told People magazine.
Iheanachor said the hospital tried to “smooth it over” by buying them off with a $25 gift card to the gift shop. “They said, ‘Sorry for what happened, here’s a gift certificate.’ I feel like it was damage control. We were just in shock,” he said.
“I still don’t feel like myself. It’s something traumatic. I’m scared now to have another baby,” Mota told People.
Mota and Iheanachor are seeking up to $5 million in damages.
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