Teenager died after routine tooth extraction at Great Ormond Street Hospital | Fieldfisher
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Case Study

Teenager died after routine tooth extraction at Great Ormond Street Hospital

A man with curly hair wearing a light blue collared shirt and a dark blazer stands in front of a blurred background of a window view. He faces forward with a neutral expression.
Mark Bowman
A woman with long straight brown hair, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a black top. She is smiling and wearing a necklace with a name pendant. The background is plain white.
Rebecca Drew
 
Mark Bowman and Rebecca Drew succeeded in a claim against Great Ormond Street Hospital on behalf of a girl who died following what should have been routine tooth extraction to 'fix her smile'.

DS

DS sadly died following complications after a 19-minute operation to remove four teeth. Following general anaesthetic and a straightforward procedure, DS bit down on the endotracheal tube in recovery and stopped breathing. She was taken to intensive care, but passed away five days later.

At an inquest in August 2020, the senior registrar who performed the surgery told the coroner that while DS was considered to be high risk due to her clinical obesity, mild asthma and sleep apnoea (which was well controlled), he was not concerned about performing the operation and would not have done anything differently.

While writing his notes in the operating theatre he noticed there was a problem with DS and that she was turning blue. He alerted the consultant anaesthetist who was unable to maintain ventilation in DS airways and realised that she was biting on the endotracheal tube. Although not uncommon, the anaesthetist failed to recognise this for several minutes.

DS was given an anaesthetic drug to reverse the biting and a new endotracheal tube was inserted, but immediately flooded with a large volume of blood. She then suffered cardiac arrest and although her pulse was restored, due to several minutes of oxygen deprivation, DS suffered irreversible and fatal brain damage.

Contact us

For further information about anaesthetist negligence claims, please call Mark Bowman on 03304606794 or email mark.bowman@fieldfisher.com, or Rebecca Drew on 03304606806 or email rebecca.drew@fieldfisher.com.

Alternatively

All enquiries are completely free of charge and we will investigate all funding options for you including no win, no fee. Find out more about no win no fee claims.