Emmalyn Nguyen case: Outrage after Colorado surgeon Geoffrey Kim gets 15 days jail for teen's death in botched surgery
ARAPAHOE COUNTY, COLORADO: The public is incensed after finding out a Colorado surgeon accused in the death of a teenage girl, following a botched breast augmentation surgery under his care, has been given a mild 15-day sentence.
Surgeon Dr Geoffrey Kim, 54, was accused of attempted reckless manslaughter and obstructing telephone services after the teenager Emmalyn Nguyen turned blue after Kim’s anesthetist Rex Meeker administered seven times the required amount of fentanyl to the teenager, per Fox News.
Who was Emmalyn Nguyen?
In August 2019, Emmalyn Nguyen had recently graduated from Mountain Range High School. She had saved up $6,000 for a breast augmentation surgery, per CBS News.
The unfortunate surgery that ended Emmalyn Nguyen’s life took place on August 1, 2019.
Following the botched procedure, Nguyen went into a coma and led a vegetative existence where she lost the ability to perform even simple daily tasks.
While her heart was beating, her brain suffered severe damage because of the prolonged oxygen deprivation caused by the administration of a huge amount of fentanyl.
After spending 14 months in a coma, she died aged 19 in hospice care.
How did Emmanyl Nguyen die?
On the day of the operation, Nguyen was given seven times the requisite amount of fentanyl for anesthesia by the former anesthetist of the clinic, Rex Meeker.
The family lawyer David Woodruff said, she “was left unobserved. No one watched her for about 15 minutes. A nurse comes into the room and finds her blue.”
Fox News reported that Nguyen’s heart stopped during the operation. Nurses who worked with Kim at his Colorado Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery testified in the court that they wanted to call 911.
However, Kim resuscitated Nguyen with CPR and prohibited the nurses from calling the police.
Prosecutor Kelsey Tipps said in her opening statements at the trial, “Not only does he not call 911 himself, but [Kim] tells every other staff member in the operating room that they cannot call 911 either.”
During the five hours that Nguyen was lying on the operation table, her mother Lynn sat outside in the waiting room, unaware of the tragedy.
Her mother was not told about her condition. Woodruff said that one time the doctor went outside and told her, “She's doing fine and she's young, maybe that's the reason why she's taking longer to wake up.”
In the meantime, Nguyen was fighting for her life in the operation theater. When her mother wanted to see her daughter, emergency services were finally called.
Referring to the delay, Woodruff said, "The huge travesty here is the location of this office is in a parking lot shared by a fire department, and the EMTs could have been there in 45 seconds to a minute.”
The anesthetist Rex Meeker, who administered the lethal dose, faced charges of criminally negligent homicide and reckless manslaughter concerning Nguyen’s death. However, those charges were let go when he went on to testify against Kim.
Meeker said during the trial, "I told him we should send her to the hospital," before adding, "It's standard operating procedure."
Why was Dr Geoffrey Kim given just a 15-day sentence?
During a hearing on Thursday, November 16, Dr Geoffrey Kim was cleared of the charge of the “negligent homicide.”
Earlier he was facing upto three years of sentencing because of the same charges.
The jury during the trial charged him for attempted reckless manslaughter and obstructing a telephone but cleared him of the charge of negligent homicide.
Following the ruling, he was given just 15 days behind bars along with two years pf probation.
He was also ordered to pay $70,000 in fines and complete 120 hours of community service in a facility for those who have suffered brain injuries, per Daily Mail.
Both Kim and Meeker will need to pay $1 million each to the Nguyen family in a wrongful death settlement too.
'Seems all we hear any more is one injustice after another'
Social media users brutally slammed the doctor as well as the judgment handed out in the case on Facebook and other platforms.
"This is a miscarriage of justice. Legal malpractice. His surgical skills are not in question, but he certainly lacks ordinary common sense and responsibility for his actions or lack of actions," said one incensed commentator.
"Seems all we hear any more is one injustice after another," said someone else gravely.
Another remarked, "The employees are to be charged too."
Another netizen observed, "People often talk about brotherhood amongst cops but doctors act in the exact same way. When one screws up 10 others will come up to bat in their defense. I wouldn't be surprised if a few testified to his competency level, ethics and so on at the trial."
"I don’t think he should be doing procedures on teens, and should get max for “medical malpractice”!!!" said another jarred user.
"And ya wonder why no one has faith in the justice system," wondered another.