Woman Injected with Air Instead of Iodine During Medical Exam at Montreal Hospital: Receives Compensation of $25,000

A patient at Hôpital Charles-Le Moyne was awarded $25,000 in compensation after having air injected into her bloodstream, a mistake that caused her to lose consciousness.

According to a judgment handed down a few weeks ago, a medical imaging technician caused quite a stir at the hospital in June 2015, when she sent air instead of iodine in the veins of a patient.

“I was really afraid of dying,” Caroline Rehel told us, with tears in her eyes, talking about the scan she had in 2015 to treat pneumonia that was slow to heal at the South Shore hospital. from Montreal.

The fear of the sixty-year-old patient is not surprising, because the medical error plunged her into respiratory distress and her condition quickly continued to deteriorate.

M^me Rehel even had to receive ‘heart massage for one to two minutes before emergency personnel arrived who found her unconscious. […] with a bluish discoloration of the skin […]heart pounding, breathing rapidly, eyes rolling back […]“, can we read in the judicial decision.

According to respiratory therapist Maxine Feng-Magnan who testified at the trial, the error could have had even more serious repercussions, because there was a lack of equipment in this radiology room.

If she had had to be intubated “there would have been long delays, because [il n’y avait] no material to do the procedure,” she said.

It was only a few hours later that the patient eventually regained consciousness in the intensive care unit, completely disoriented.

She understood the seriousness of the situation when a hospital employee told her:

“You scared me, Madame,” explained Mr.^me Rehel to Judge Louis-Paul Cullen of the Superior Court, during the four-day trial held last January.

Almost eight years later, she is still afraid when it comes to having medical exams.

“Even today, I wake up in the middle of the night because of nightmares that haunt me,” explained the patient.

However, this poorly done medical examination not only had an impact on his mental and physical health, but also on a financial level.

This error, for which she is not responsible, cost her almost $15,000 in legal advice and medical expertise.

She even had to borrow money from relatives to cover these costs.