CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Sean Claggett delivering his opening statement
Portland, OR - An Oregon state court jury heard opening statements Wednesday in a medical malpractice lawsuit blaming a medical team at an outpatient surgery center for a man’s death following a routine colonoscopy, and the full trial is being webcast and recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Erric Gilbert’s family sued the Portland Clinic and a team of medical providers after he went into respiratory arrest during the procedure in 2018. Their lawsuit accuses medical staff of failing to provide emergency resuscitation in time after his vital signs began to crash, however the clinic places the blame squarely on an anesthesiologist who has settled out of the case.
Attorney Sean Claggett of the Las Vegas-based Claggett & Sykes Law Firm told the Multnomah County jury he would seek roughly $7.7 million in economic damages and $50 million in non-economic damages for a series of decisions by the team as a whole that he characterized as falling badly below the standard of care.
Claggett described to jurors that Gilbert scheduled a colonoscopy in 2018 at the age of 43 to determine the cause of blood in his stool. Despite having high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and a body mass index above the threshold that supposedly would have called for the procedure to be done in a hospital setting, Gilbert’s procedure was scheduled at the Alberty Surgical Center, one of the Portland Clinic’s outpatient locations.
Shortly after Dr. David Stellway administered the anesthesia, Claggett said Gilbert's blood pressure began to rise and his blood oxygen levels began to fall. Despite this, he claimed Dr. Young Choi, the gastroenterologist performing the colonoscopy, continued with the procedure even when Kathryn Carlson, the sedation nurse, noted signs of respiratory distress and lack of pinkness in Gilbert’s skin.
Dr. Stellway began “bagging” Gilbert using an external respiration mask, but did not advise Dr. Choi to halt the procedure when asked if a pause would be helpful to focus on restoring Gilbert’s airway. By this point Claggett noted Gilbert had been in respiratory arrest for almost eight minutes. Dr. Choi continued and concluded the procedure, but according to Claggett Gilbert’s vitals worsened further.
Claggett described that eventually a surgical technician in the room, Janice Dulle, not Dr. Choi or Nurse Carlson, realized the severity of Gilbert’s condition and hit the “code” button on the wall, summoning a nearby EMS team, which found Gilbert at that point in full cardiac arrest.
“They arrive and find the staff in chaos and no CPR being given, even after the code,” Claggett said, claiming adequate CPR only began 22 minutes after Gilbert stopped breathing. He was transported to a local hospital, declared brain dead, and died shortly afterward.
Claggett told jurors the defense would attempt to place all the blame on Dr. Stellway, who was brought before a state medical board due to the incident and subsequently surrendered his medical license, but Claggett insisted all of the staff in the room were aware of Gilbert’s distress and had an obligation to begin emergency procedures.
“Dr. Choi, Nurse Carlson and Surgical Tech Dulle sat by and watched and let Ericc Gilbert die,” he concluded.
Representing the clinic, attorney Jennifer Oetter of Lewis Brisbois aggressively defended the actions of the three providers and placed the blame squarely on Dr. Stellway for supposedly failing to alert the rest of the team to the severity of Gilbert’s distress.
“They all did their jobs appropriately,” she emphasized.
Oetter detailed what she characterized as a comprehensive pre-surgical screening that took into consideration Gilbert’s medical history, including a BMI that she said was only slightly above the level that could require use of a hospital facility. In concert with the rest of Gilbert’s examination, she said testimony at trial would show the decision to use an outpatient facility met the standard of care.
Oetter explained that despite colonoscopies being considered “routine” they still require the intensely focused concentration of the gastroenterologist, and that Dr. Choi’s entire attention was appropriately focused on navigating the scope through Gilbert’s colon.
It is normal for anesthesiologists to move around the room and attend to various matters during a procedure, so Oetter suggested Dr. Choi wouldn’t have necessarily noticed Dr. Stellway using a bag respirator, and she repeatedly stressed that Dr. Choi supposedly only continued the procedure after explicitly asking Dr. Stellway if he should.
“The anesthesiologist never says the patient is not breathing,” she said.
The trial, taking place before Judge Steffan Alexander, is expected to run through mid-August. CVN’s gavel-to-gavel coverage will continue for the duration of the proceedings.
The case is captioned The Estate of Erric Edward Gilbert vs The Portland Clinic, et al. case number 21CV18955
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com