How Prepared Are You for a Medical Emergency?
Dr. Catharine Goodson catharine@catharinegoodsondds.com www. catharinegoodsondds.com "One day you will wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted. Do it now…" — Paulo Coelho In March 2011 what was supposed to be a routine wisdom tooth extraction on a 17-year-old girl from Woodstock, Maryland, went horribly wrong. Jenny Olenick had been given the standard dose of anesthesia, but it didn’t sedate her adequately. The anesthesiologist administered more, and the procedure began. Then Jenny began experiencing bradycardia, or a slowing heart rate, and the oxygen saturation in her blood started dropping. Soon she went into hypoxic arrest. Emergency responders were called and restored Jenny’s pulse within four minutes of their arrival, but the damage had been done. Jenny was rushed to the hospital, where she died after being in a coma for a week. The autopsy showed that Jenny had brain edema and acute hypoxic-ischemic encephalopat...