Posted on Apr 06, 2007
Mother infected with flesh-eating bacteria sues hospital, owners
Rene Stutzman
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 2 2007, 2:39 PM EDT
SANFORD -- The young mother who entered the hospital to give birth but wound up infected with a flesh-eating bacteria that required doctors to amputate all four of her limbs sued the hospital and its owner today, alleging medical malpractice.
Claudia Mejia's suit, filed in state circuit court, seeks unspecified damages.
It alleges that the staff at South Seminole Hospital, where she gave birth, failed to detect early signs that of the infection.
The suit names the hospital, its parent company - Orlando Regional Healthcare System Inc., two doctors, a nurse and two midwives.
Mejia delivered a healthy baby boy April 28, 2005, at South Seminole. But she then became very sick, and was transferred to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando, where doctors wound up amputating both arms and legs to stop the infection.
An ORHS spokesman was not immediately available for comment Monday.
But a hospital lawyer said last year that South Seminole Hospital was not the source of the flesh-eating bacteria.
Mejia's attorneys sued the hospital and ORHS last year, demanding the release of records of other patients who were diagnosed with the same type of bacteria. That case is still pending.
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