PEORIA, Ill. – A Peoria County jury has awarded $2 million for a 13-year-old girl after it found a pediatric surgeon at OSF Children’s Hospital negligent.
In a statement Monday from Romanucci and Blandin LLC, surgeon Mark Holterman treated the girl in July 2011 when she was nine-months-old for a choking episode.
Holterman found a piece of carrot in her esophagus, along with a narrowed area called a stricture, which he dilated and caused a two centimeter tear in the esophagus.
He reportedly treated it with a leftover adult airway stent to try and cover the tear. But it had dropped in her stomach, where it remained for 11 months. The girl had developed feeding issues and was dependent on a feeding tube inserted through her abdomen into the stomach.
Lawyers for the girl showed evidence that Holterman had used an outdated device to dilate the esophagus, and that Holterman claimed he was being innovative with the stent, which was not approved for use in the esophagus of a baby.
The girl’s parents also reportedly were unaware that the stent was not approved for use in a baby. The girl’s mother testified that she felt her daughter was a “guinea pig” when the stent was used without full details provided on whether others were using it like Holterman did.
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