27-Month-Old Girl Dies 11 Days After Cardiac Arrest During General Anesthesia at Eye Hospital

Police change charges to professional negligence resulting in death
Autopsy and hospital search to determine cause of accident

A 27-month-old girl who went into cardiac arrest while under general anesthesia at an ophthalmology hospital in Ulsan has died.

A doctor performing surgery. File photo unrelated to the article. Photo by The Asia Business Daily DB.

According to the Ulsan Jungbu Police Station on October 16, A, a 2-year-old girl who had gone into cardiac arrest and was being treated at a hospital, died on the afternoon of September 13. She died 11 days after the accident.

On October 2, A went into cardiac arrest while under general anesthesia at an ophthalmology hospital in Jung-gu, Ulsan, to treat entropion, a condition in which the eyelashes turn inward and irritate the cornea.

Immediately after the accident, A received cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and was taken to a nearby hospital, where her heartbeat was restored, but she never regained consciousness.

Following A's death, police changed the charges against three medical staff members, including the hospital director, the anesthesiologist and the surgeon, from professional negligence resulting in injury to professional negligence resulting in death.

One possible cause of the accident being considered is hypoxia resulting from an error in connecting the anesthesia equipment's circuits. The anesthesiologist in charge of administering anesthesia reportedly told the family several days after the accident that, during an equipment inspection, the two circuits through which air flowed in and out had been connected in reverse.

Police are therefore focusing their investigation on whether the oxygen supply equipment was properly connected during the anesthesia procedure.

Police conducted an autopsy on October 15 to determine the exact cause of death and recently raided the hospital, securing evidence related to the surgery. They questioned nursing staff who were on duty at the time of the accident and are coordinating a date for questioning the freelance anesthesiologist.

Police plan to determine the exact state of the circuit connections at the time of the accident and whether the medical staff were negligent, based on statements from those involved, the autopsy results and assessments by expert institutions.

Police are also investigating why the operating room's closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage was not recorded at the time of the accident. They are reviewing whether the hospital violated the Medical Service Act, after seeking legal advice on when the obligation to record CCTV footage takes effect.

The hospital previously explained that it had not deliberately failed to record the procedure, saying, "The child was crying, and while we were trying to calm her down, we simply forgot to turn on the recording system, which is activated with a hand gesture."

A's mother recently announced her daughter's death on social media and called for a thorough investigation, saying, "I want to know whether this accident could have been prevented and, if so, why it wasn't."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.