Here’s a nightmare out of a horror movie for you: A Missouri couple are suing an obstetrician who they allege decapitated their baby during a botched birth, according to Courthouse News Service.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/02/50841.htm
The malpractice lawsuit was filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court by Arteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette against defendants including Dr. Gilbert Webb. The hospital where the incident took place, St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, was not named as a defendant in the litigation.
The suit charges that in March 2011 Betts came to the hospital when she started having preterm contractions. Although one doctor two weeks prior had said that Betts would need a cesarean section because of the baby’s large girth, Webb still insisted that Betts have a vaginal birth, Courthouse News reported.
But the baby, Kaden Travis Ammonette, got stuck in the mother’s birth canal. When Webb was trying to dislodge the baby, the doctor allegedly applied too much pressure and separated the infant’s head from its cervical spine.
In this gruesome scene, the lawsuit says that blood from the baby’s neck shot all over the hospital floor, in front of the parents. To top that horror off, Webb allegedly then pushed the baby’s head and body back into the birth canal and said that a cesarean was necessary, according to Courthouse News. She as wheeled to an operating room.
Even before the mother Betts was given an anesthetic, the suit charges, Webb cut into her abdomen to make the incision for the procedure.
Courthouse News quoted from the lawsuit, saying, “During the course of the cesarean section, defendant Webb surgically and completely removed decedent Kaden Travis Ammonette’s head from his neck and torso.”
I have to ask you: Should there be a cap on any jury awards in that case?
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