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Prosecutors began presenting their case in the federal IV tampering trial of a Richardson anesthesiologist with emotional testimony from one of the alleged victims.
Investigators claim that in 2022 Raynoldo Ortiz injected IV bags with dangerous drugs that led to one woman’s death and serious health emergencies for other patients at Baylor Scott and White Surgicare in North Dallas.
Fellow anesthesiologist Dr. Melanie Casper died in June 2022 after taking an IV bag home to rehydrate when she wasn’t feeling well.
EMOTIONAL TESTIMONY TUESDAY
On Tuesday, one of the alleged victims, a 57-year-old Plano mother of three who went in for liposuction and a facelift testified she woke up in an ICU hospital bed, intubated, realizing her low-risk surgery had gone very wrong.
“I thought I was going to die, I thought I was going to choke to death,” she told jurors.
The woman is one of five patients who suffered cardiac emergencies at the clinic between May and August 2022.
The clinic’s former administrator, Ashley Burks, broke down on the stand recalling the last case linked to Ortiz where an 18-year-old started to crash in late August. Burks testified after an unusually high number of emergencies she alerted higher-ups. “It’s (expletive) happening again.” Burks testified she checked the teen’s IV bag. “We found a hole in it,” she told the jury.
Prosecutors showed the bag from that case in court, pointing out the tiny hole at the bottom of the IV bag.
Prosecutors then had Burks show the jury what they believed happened — injecting a real IV bag with a needle and syringe filled with air.
VIDEO ALSO TAKES CENTER STAGE AT TRIAL
Both the prosecution and the defense spent most of the day dissecting dozens of surveillance video clips and angles, showing Ortiz removing vials and IV bags from a warming bin, leaving, returning and putting bags in for other medical staff to pick up and administer to patients.
The video also showed, in some cases, staff rushing in moments later as patients experienced alarmingly high blood pressure.
His defense is trying to prove his innocence, pointing out that no one ever sees Ortiz on camera injecting the bags.
Ortiz has pleaded not guilty to 10 federal charges related to tampering and altering IV bags. If convicted, he faces life in prison.