PA: Doc and anesthetist found liable after complications claim life of teen

A five-week trial was held in front of Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Sheldon C. Jelin. The jury deliberated for close to 2 1/2 days.
According to the plaintiffs' pre-trial memorandum, a blood vessel in Amy Fledderman's neck was severed during the liposuction, and she was administered medication to which she was allergic. Despite a respiratory emergency, the plaintiffs' memorandum alleged, Glunk and DeStefano kept Fledderman in Glunk's office for 2 1/2 hours and did not call an ambulance until she was on the verge of death, including appearing cyanotic, or blue, and her oxygen levels had dropped from the normal high 90s to the 60s.
Fledderman died two days later as she was being transferred from Montgomery Hospital to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the plaintiffs' memorandum said.

The plaintiffs' memorandum said Fledderman had an agonizing death and spent the 24 hours before dying in severe pain, intubated and vomiting blood.

"Dr. Glunk and his staff engaged in a massive cover-up, lying to the Pennsylvania Department of State investigators, to the Pennsylvania Department of Health investigators, and to detectives from the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office," the plaintiffs' memorandum alleged. "It was not until the civil suit, during pointed questioning of witnesses by plaintiffs' counsel, that the truth was finally drawn from under the rock where Dr. Glunk and his staff had attempted to hide it.

Glunk's liposuction privileges had been restricted at Main Line Health Hospitals, and he was required to be under the supervision of another liposuction surgeon, according to the plaintiffs' memorandum. Glunk's King of Prussia, Pa., office was not licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the plaintiffs' memorandum said.

Glunk's pretrial defense memorandum said that Fledderman had a rough emergence from anesthesia, resulting in short breathing. Glunk's memorandum said Glunk and his staff monitored her until her breathing decreased even more, and an ambulance needed to be summoned. Glunk then argued that Fledderman was intubated incorrectly by paramedic Samuel Paolella of the Lafayette Ambulance and Rescue Squad during her transportation to Montgomery Hospital, causing her oxygen saturation to decline to 64 percent.

McLaughlin said that Glunk changed his theory of the case just before trial from blaming the ambulance squad to saying that an unavoidable medical problem -- a fat embolism during the liposuction procedure -- caused Fledderman's death.
DeStefano also argued in his pre-trial defense memorandum that a fat embolism had caused Fledderman's death.
"Unfortunately, the plaintiff developed a rare, but recognized complication of the liposuction procedure -- fat emboli, that led to her death," DeStefano's memorandum said."