Surgeon Says Accident Ruined Transplant

A surgeon who was seriously injured in an accident claims that a Tri-State ambulance driver caused the wreck that ended a possible lung transplant.

Target 5 revealed that the crash may have hurt more than the transplant team inside the ambulance. It very well could have kept a patient from receiving the gift of life.

The following is a transcript of Jesse Jones' report, shown exactly the way it appeared on WLWT Eyewitness News 5 at 6 p.m., Nov. 13, 2001.

Jesse Jones: This was supposed to be a routine organ recovery. What it turned into was a race for life that ended in the worst of circumstances. The question remains, is Medic One and its driver responsible for accident or did the worst circumstances meet at the wrong time?

It was early on the morning of Feb. 2, when a transplant team left Ohio State University's hospital.

Their mission: retrieve a lung from a donor in Cincinnati and return it to a recipient in Columbus.

The group would fly to Lunken Airport and be driven to Christ Hospital by Medic One ambulance.

Upon landing, the transplant team called the transplant coordinators, telling them everything was a go.

Mark Sommerville/Life Center: "We had that initial call and we got a second call, very quickly, after the accident telling us that there had been an accident."

Jones: That call to Life Center's Mark Sommerville would end all hopes for the lung's recovery. The ambulance driver lost control of the vehicle, crashing into a light pole on William Howard Taft.

One of the surgeons on the transplant team is seriously injured. The transplant would end before it even began, leaving a patient in need, waiting, for that gift of life.

Jones: "I guess we'll never know if that lung would have been accepted or not.

Sommerville: "No, we will never know whether the lungs would have been used for a recipient because they never got there to actually look at the lungs, inspect them and do the normal process that takes place."

Anthony White/attorney: "I think, in the end, Medic One and Miss Cooper had a responsibility to the person that was going to receive this lung; the fact that this person did not get this lung. That's a tragedy."

Jones: It was an icy day, with at least 100 accidents reported in Hamilton County. But at least one person says ice wasn't the only factor in that crash.

Anthony White, an attorney representing Dr. Minoru Ono, a surgeon injured in that crash, places the blame on Medic One driver Tonya Cooper.

White: Miss Cooper was told by the surgeons in the ambulance that this was not an emergency situation and that she should take reasonable care driving the ambulance so that they did not get into an accident. Seems like she ignored that advice and got them into an accident.

Jones: Organ transplants are time sensitive. Dr. Andrew Goldstein, the other surgeon in the ambulance, says an additional 10 to 20 minutes of travel time wouldn't have hurt their chances to recover the lungs. He declined an on-camera interview. And Mark Sommerville from Life Center tells us that transplant teams are very aware of how much leeway they have.

Sommerville: "There is some flexibility in the recovery process. And we try to set that time for the recovery that works best for all of the recovery teams."

Jones: Dr. Andrew Goldstein also told both Target 5 and Anthony White that the driver, at one point, was driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

White: "That just adds to the outrageousness of the conduct in our perspective because there was absolutely no need for any of those risks to be taken."

Jones: Tonya Cooper referred all of our questions to the company attorney who declined comment. Cooper would be ticketed and found guilty for losing reasonable control of the ambulance. She is still employed by Medic One.

White: "The police department arrived at the scene and did an independent evaluation of this without talking to anybody else and concluded that Miss Cooper had been negligent and that she need to be cited for this accident."

Jones: White says his client was strapped in the back jump seat during the crash.

White: "He had several injuries, including eight separate fractures in his body, his knee, his hip and his ribcage. I think the fact that he was restrained and had eight fractures shows that this was a very violent collision."

Jones: We wanted to speak with Dr. Ono, but he is back in his home city of Tokyo and is unavailable for comment.

But this story does not end there. Other transplant teams were able to retrieve organs from that donor. And though the lungs were not recovered, four others found themselves blessed.

Sommerville: "Several other people were helped. Even those organs were not recovered. At least four other organs were recovered that could help other people."

Jones: This case is set for arbitration next spring.

One more note; other recovery teams did make it to the hospital. And at least four other organs were recovered from the donor.

This article posted January 19, 2002.

Surgeon Says Accident Ruined Transplant

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