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Jury awards triple damages in death from surgery injuries BY RON SYLVESTER The Wichita Eagle A jury ordered a Wichita heart surgeon to pay nearly three times the state's average for medical malpractice damages to the husband of a woman who died of injuries suffered in a routine operation. Mary Lee, 79, died of complications after a catheter used in the operation perforated a vein. After hearing testimony spanning two weeks, jurors on Wednesday returned a verdict against surgeon Wade Fischer, ordering him to pay $735,182 in damages to Richard Lee. Fischer had argued the fault should have fallen on the anesthesiologist. The jury found Fischer 100 percent at fault. According to court records and evidence presented to the jury, Mary Lee died of excessive bleeding after the catheter repeatedly pierced a vein prior to surgery. Arden Bradshaw, the Lee family lawyer, argued the surgeon should have evaluated the damage before going ahead with the surgery. Richard Lee, who lives in the Cowley County town of Atlanta, contended the doctor instead went ahead with the surgery and didn't go back to fix the problem until it was too late to save his patient. Fischer's lawyer, Randy Troutt, said the anesthesiologist -- who was dismissed from the case before trial -- was the one who didn't correctly insert the catheter. Fisher also claimed the anesthesiologist didn't use the proper tools to assess the damage and didn't communicate the problem to the surgeon. The average damage payment for medical malpractice in Kansas is $250,000, according to the National Practitioners Databank, a government reporting system for doctors and hospitals.
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