A wrongful death suit blames a young woman's death on nurses who failed to notify physicians of a patient's latex allergy and failed to follow the hospital's latex allergy procedures. An appeals court has affirmed a jury's $4 million award for the deceased woman's estate.

The patient, 29-year-old Ellen Kelly, underwent a hysterectomy and partial vulvectomy at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center on July 10, 2000. Soon after emerging from anesthesia, Ms. Kelly complained of itching, had blisters on her lips, redness of the face and nausea. Nurses administered Benadryl to alleviate itching and Phenergan to treat post-op nausea and vomiting.

Jonathan Kelly, the patient's husband, remained with Ms. Kelly during the afternoon and evening following her surgery, speaking to Ms. Kelly about every 45 minutes, court records show. Early the following morning, he heard his wife make "gasping and gurgling sounds," and contacted a Baptist nurse when his wife was unable to respond to him. An emergency physician immediately intubated Ms. Kelly, who had developed ventricular tachycardia and had lost her pulse. Unable to breathe on her own, she was placed on a ventilator and transferred to Baptist's ICU. Ms. Kelly never regained consciousness, and died on July 14, 2000, after her family elected to take her off the ventilator.

Mr. Kelly later brought a wrongful death suit against Baptist, claiming his wife died of anaphylactic shock as a result of the facility and its physicians failing to discover her latex allergy and take the appropriate precautions.

At trial, Mr. Kelly produced Baptist's latex allergy policies and procedures, which require all patients to be assessed for latex allergies upon admission, and dictate that patients be questioned about certain items that would indicate a patient is at high risk for a latex allergy. Ms. Kelly had noted an allergy to chestnuts on an assessment form prepared by a Baptist nurse a week before her surgery, which indicated she was at risk for a latex allergy.

Per hospital procedures, a nurse should have indicated such a risk on the assessment form, placed an allergy sticker on the front of the patient's chart, placed signage on the patient's door, and notified central supply and purchasing regarding any special supplies or products needed for the patient. Further, a nurse should have notified food and nutrition services to ensure servers don't wear latex gloves when serving the patient food. However, the nurse that prepared the form testified that she didn't follow the protocol or notify a physician of Ms. Kelly's risk for an allergic or anaphylactic reaction because Ms. Kelly didn't specify a known latex allergy. In addition, Ms. Kelly's pre-op nurse testified that she didn't consult the form before surgery to check for possible allergies.

A jury ultimately exonerated the physicians who performed Ms. Kelly's surgery, but found Baptist liable for her death through the negligence of its nurses. The jury awarded $516,000 to the wrongful death beneficiaries and $4,175,000 to Ms. Kelly's estate. An appeals court recently upheld the jury's verdict.

Attorneys for both parties did not respond to requests for comment.

Mark McGraw