Photo: Courtesy Delfina Mota and Paul Iheanachor
A California couple is suing an Oceanside hospital, claiming doctors performed a C-section on the woman with no anesthesia, leaving her conscious and alert for the painful procedure.
“I was crying because I was scared, I didn’t know what was going on. I was laying there and [obstetrician Dr. Sandra Lopez] was like, ‘We have to just do it,’ ” Mota says. “That’s when I felt them cut me open. Nurses were holding me down … I could feel her cutting me and, with her hands, opening me. That’s when I passed out.”
Courtesy Delfina Mota and Paul Iheanachor
Outside the delivery room, Mota’s boyfriend, Paul Iheanachor, sat worried as they rushed Mota in to give birth. He says he became panicked when, as alleged in the legal complaint, he heard hospital officials call the anesthesiologist, Dr. David Seif, on the loudspeaker several times.
“I heard the most horrific screams you could ever imagine, multiple screams,” Iheanachor, 35, recalls. “Horrific screaming and then silence. That’s when I got really emotional and tried to get into the room. But there was a nurse outside the door and she prevented me from going in. All I kept saying is, ‘I know you guys didn’t cut her without any anesthesia.’ ”
Mota and Iheanachor say Seif ran to the delivery room after Cali Iheanachor had been born. Mota says that when she regained consciousness, Seif was present and allegedly told her, “I’m gonna make you feel better now.”
“They kept asking what we remember. They tried to smooth it over and said, ‘These things happen,’ ” Iheanachor alleges of hospital staff. “They gave us a double room, so I could stay. They gave us a $25 gift certificate to the gift shop. They said, ‘Sorry for what happened, here’s a gift certificate.’ I feel like it was damage control. We were just in shock.”
Neither Seif nor Lopez nor Tri-City Medical Center officials immediately responded to a request for comment from PEOPLE. However, the medical center denied the allegations in a statement toThe San Diego Union-Tribune.
source: people.com
