William Ogle, left, and Davis Love, deliver openings at trial over the catastrophic, and ultimately fatal stroke a Florida man suffered during an elective heart surgery. Watch the trial.
Jacksonville, FL— Attorneys yesterday debated what led to a Florida minister’s massive, and ultimately fatal, stroke during heart surgery, as trial opened against the surgeon who performed the operation. Tyson v. Messina, 2021-CA-001639.
Paul Tyson, 77, who had served for decades as a minister in Florida churches, suffered a stroke during an elective heart bypass surgery in June 2018. He ultimately died in February 2019. His family contends the physician that performed the surgery, Dr. Jack John Messina, failed to take steps to ensure that there were no blood clots in a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, commonly called a heart-lung machine.
During Wednesday’s openings, Ogle Law Firm’s William Ogle, who represents Tyson’s family, walked jurors through Tyson’s surgery. He told jurors evidence will show Messina failed to properly inspect or direct the change of all critical components of the machine before starting it, despite a roughly 50-minute delay in the procedure, which he said allowed clots to form in the system. Once the machine was started, Ogle said, the machine quickly jammed because of clotting, which entered Tyson’s system and caused his stroke.
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Ogle told jurors that, if all catheters and critical components of the machine had been proactively replaced, a process he said that takes 10-15 minutes, Tyson would not have suffered his stroke.
“The clots are not in his body. They’re in the system. And that system is all replaceable,” Ogle said. “If that had been done, what would have happened? Paul Tyson would be here today.”
But Messina, the only defendant at trial, contends he appropriately carried out his duties as the surgeon on the procedure and that Tyson’s stroke was an unavoidable surgical complication.
During Wednesday’s openings, Messina’s attorney, Childs Hester & Love’s Davis Love, told jurors that, as soon as the machine showed a jam, clotting was discovered in the tip of the aortic catheter, which, along with other elements of the machine, was replaced. Love said the procedure then continued, with no additional clots discovered and nothing during surgery indicating Tyson had suffered a stroke.
Love added that the surgical team's perfusionist, and not Messina, was responsible for overseeing the machine.
"The cardiothoracic surgeon isn't qualified to run [the machine]. They're not qualified to put it together, and they're not qualified to troubleshoot. That's why the perfusionist is there," Love said. "That's why everybody involved [in surgery] has their own duties and responsibilities."
Trial is expected to last into next week.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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