The family of a 20-year-old Kansas man who suffered brain damage during a 2009 dental procedure reached a $3 million settlement January 28 with one of seven defendants named in a lawsuit set to go to trial in November.
The lawsuit was filed in April 2010 in Douglas County District Court on behalf of Austin Stone and his guardians, Tara Passmore and Lance Stone. It alleges that oxygen and nitrous oxide lines were crossed during the design and construction of an oral surgery facility operated by Kirk Vincent, DDS, and that this incorrect installation led to Stone suffering severe brain damage.
The settlement agreement was with Action Plumbing, which installed the gas lines.
Stone went to Dr. Vincent on March 30, 2009, to have his four third molars removed, according to the lawsuit. Stone, who was 18 at the time and just two months away from high school graduation, was Dr. Vincent's first patient in the new dental center.
Dr. Vincent tried to sedate Stone with what he believed was a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen. When the anesthesia failed to take effect, Dr. Vincent then administered fentanyl and diazepam, followed by propofol.
— Lawsuit filed April 2010 in Douglas County District Court
At that point Stone's heart rate decreased and Dr. Vincent administered what he thought to be 100% oxygen but was actually pure nitrous oxide, according to the complaint.
"The pipeline drawings prepared and submitted by H&B [Hoss & Brown, the mechanical engineers on the project] mistakenly and improperly labeled the oxygen and nitrous oxide pipelines which if such instructions were followed would result in a cross-connection between the oxygen and nitrous oxide tanks," the lawsuit states.
Several minutes after receiving the pure nitrous oxide, Stone stopped breathing and emergency medical workers were called. He was rushed to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where he was diagnosed with anoxic encephalopathy, according to the lawsuit. He was in a coma for more than two months, followed by ongoing rehabilitation, and has suffered permanent brain damage, the complaint states.
Inadequate inspection alleged
In the settlement agreement, Action Plumbing denied liability. However, "the employees of Action Plumbing were not certified to install medical gas lines," according to the lawsuit. "None of the defendants took the steps necessary to ensure that the required inspection and testing by a certified independent contractor was performed to confirm that the medical gas pipelines at the project were installed properly and that system integrity had been achieved."
The lawsuit also finds fault with the city of Lawrence, noting that city employees "failed to take any steps to ensure that the medical gas lines were installed by skilled and certified installers, that the pipelines had been properly installed, or that appropriate and required testing and inspections had been performed."
"There are a lot of cities throughout the U.S. that do not have adequate inspection criteria for medical gases, and we are trying to get this changed," Dr. Vincent told DrBicuspid.com in April 2009. "Before you get a building permit, you need to have a certified plumber. And at the completion of the process, you need verification performed on your system before you get your occupancy permit stamped."
The remaining defendants in the lawsuit -- Dr. Vincent, Patterson Dental Supply, Blanchard Design Group, Design Build Collaborative, Hoss & Brown, and the city of Lawrence -- still face legal action, according to Kirk Goza, the attorney representing the Stone family. The lawsuit, which goes to trial in November, is seeking $75,000 for each of 12 counts.
"This case is far from being resolved," Goza told DrBicuspid.com.
The majority of the $3 million settlement with Action Plumbing will be used to pay for Stone's medical bills and ongoing treatment. Stone is able to walk with a cane, although he is legally blind and has a hard time hearing, according to a 2010 story in the Lawrence Journal World. Even so, he is in school at the Kansas State School for the Blind.
"What I would like to do now is take some speaking classes and try to become a motivational speaker," he told the newspaper.
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