Florida woman goes into hospital to have baby, leaves as a double amputee

[UM Review RN]

How tragic! How frightening! This could happen to ANY of our patients! The rest of the story here:

http://www.wftv.com/news/6253589/detail.html

Woman Becomes Quadruple Amputee After Giving Birth

POSTED: 5:59 pm EST January 19, 2006

UPDATED: 4:06 pm EST January 20, 2006

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.

The woman filed a complaint against Orlando Regional Healthcare Systems, she said, because they won't tell her exactly what happened. The hospital maintains the woman wants to know information that would violate other patients' rights.

Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. She was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given.

The hospital, in a letter, wrote that if she wanted to find out exactly what happened, she would have to sue them.

"I want to know what happened. I went to deliver my baby and I came out like this," Mejia said.

Mejia said after she gave birth to Mathew last spring, she was kept in the hospital with complications. Twelve days after giving birth at Orlando Regional South Seminole hospital, she was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center where she became a quadruple amputee. Now she can not care for or hold her baby.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

More to this story than meets the eye.

I'm perplexed by one thing: flesh eating bacteria, in my experience, begins in areas like the groin. Now I can see it first involving a limb, but not all four limbs without some torso crossover. . .

I almost believe the story to be made up . . . Because I can't imagine amputating four limbs of a pregnancy-aged woman without bending over backwards to verify the procedure. . . .

~faith,

Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Does Streptococcus spread that easily and quickly? Anyone? HB

Yes, flesh eating Strep spreads that quickly. But it's not quite so contagious.

It's actually a mixture of several bacteria and there is something about that person's endemic system that fans the flames of that bacterial cocktail.

If you were infected by a carrier of flesh eating bacteria, you would almost certainly not catch it (bugs, yes, the speed of spread, no. And in any case, a slowed down reaction normally allows your own immune system to deal. So even if you 'caught' it, you might never know it.). In order to 'catch' it, your 'flesh' would have to have the same endemic tendencies to feed those bacteria.

Diabetics are more likely to have this, btw.

The bugs are contagious. The 'flesh eating' isn't, unless you're a host that encourages rapid spread. And that is very rare.

That's my understanding.

~faith,

Timothy.

[Room2Move]

At the bottom of the article, here's what the hospital says is potential HIPPA violoation:

ORMC said Mejia is requesting information on if there were other patients or someone on her floor with the streptococcus. They said, if they release that to her, that would be a violation of other patients' rights.

What a sad, sad story.

[austin heart, BSN, RN]

This whole story sounds VERY fishy to me. Has to be more to it.

Here is another article I found by Googleing it........

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=24190

[rpv_rn]

Is this story the beginning of an urban legend?

[babynurselsa, RN]

It would not be a hipaa violation to give this patient statistics or information regarding whether other patients experienced similar infections if no names were involved.

How many times have we advised or looked into infection,morbidity/mortality rates in a facility or physician in order to select the best.

[Cute_CNA, CNA]

This is horrible, but there has to be more to this story then what this article states. Just doesn't make sense.

I agree. I wonder if there is more to it, as well.

[grannynurse FNP student]

if she had the flesh eating bacteria, time would be of the essense. if her mental status was compromised and there was no one available to sign consent for her, would the hospital not have the right to perform life saving surgery? in this case, life saving surgery might well be amputating the affected limb(s). a co worker of mine just lost her brother-in-law to this. he thought he pulled his hamstring -- was limping during his am golf game, was febrile and chilling in the afternoon, and dead by evening. the man was 32.

to answer your question, no hospital has the right to perform surgery without authorization. with that being said, there are a number of answers. take a look at your facility's authorization for treatment. buried in the fine print is authorization to perform surgery and/or any life saving efforts. or two surgeons could have decided the surgery was necessary to save her life, hence giving them authorization. or they could have used the original hospital's authorization for treatment. however, any intelligent surgeon would get specific permission from the patient and/or spouse. and any intelligent pre op nurse would check for proper authorization.

grannynurse:balloons:

[mom23RN]

From my experience strep is "normal flora" on our skin, our mucous membranes, etc. There is a small percent of the population that "carrys" this bug. Sometimes something happens to a mutated form of the bug and that's when it becomes advanced to the "flesh eating". This could very well have been her OWN strep if I'm not mistaken.

It sounds to me as if the possibilites were to lose her limbs or lose her life. That's not an easy choice to make, but I'm assuming someone probably told the doctor's to "do whatever was neccesary to save her life" and this, sadly, was the end result.

I would really like to see more information on this case and follow it to see what the resolution is.

I think this a horribly sad case. I cannot even begin to imagine not being able to hold my own child, but I also don't know if this was ANY fault of the hospital, doctors, or staff. It could be one in a million of those horrible things that happen to people in their lives and they want someone to blame.

[Monica RN,BSN]

I would be interested in someone who workes at ORMC has better insight to what actually happened. I understand that they would not want to post on a public board though, so we will never really know what happened in this unfortunate event. The media will tell you only what they want you to know, which in most cases is not the truth anyways.

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

Here's the CDC link on flesh-eating bacteria and its ilk:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/groupastreptococcal_g.htm

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

Here's the CDC link on flesh-eating bacteria and its ilk:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/groupastreptococcal_g.htm

From the above CDC url:

Who is most at risk of getting invasive group A streptococcal disease?

Few people who come in contact with GAS will develop invasive GAS disease. Most people will have a throat or skin infection, and some may have no symptoms at all. Although healthy people can get invasive GAS disease, people with chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and kidney dialysis, and those who use medications such as steroids have a higher risk.

~faith,

Timothy.