A 17 year old woman died in June 2015, after having her wisdom teeth removed. This has been reported on http://teethremoval.com/death.html since 2015. The woman was from Minnesota and went into cardiac arrest during the surgery.
The woman’s parents in early 2017, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the oral and maxillofacial surgeon. The court documents said that the surgeon and staff did not appropriately anticipate or respond to the emergency. The lawsuit said there were dangerous actions, from incorrectly administering general anesthesia to failing to provide proper monitoring during surgery. The attorney said the parents sued the doctor as it
“…gave the family a better understanding of how the death of their daughter came about… They had the courage in a difficult situation to seek the truth about why their daughter died.”
The attorney also said
“I’m absolutely convinced that [she] didn’t have to die the way she did. No amount of money ever replaces a child.”
Instead of going to court, the parents and the surgeon reached a settlement of $2.6 million dollars, just over $2 million dollars, with $740,000 going to the law firm that represented the parents of the woman who died. The oral surgeon faced a temporary suspension of his license in 2016 that prevented him from administering general anesthesia or sedation but it was restored in 2017. The amount of money awarded was the maximum the oral surgeon’s malpractice insurance was able to pay out.
Sources: Susan Schwart and Enjoli Francis, Parents of teen who died after getting wisdom teeth pulled accept $2M settlement, Dec. 5, 2017, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/parents-teen-died-wisdom-teeth-pulled-accept-2m/story?id=51571376.
Paul Walsh, Star Tribune, Dec 5, 2017, http://www.startribune.com/edina-oral-surgeon-settles-suit-over-teen-s-death-after-routine-wisdom-teeth-surgery/461843273/.
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