In Memory

Glenn Taras

Walnutport Couple Sue Doctors In Son's Death

November 13, 1987|The Morning Call

A Walnutport couple have filed a malpractice suit in Northampton County Court over the 1986 death of their 15-year-old son.

Glenn D. Taras Sr. of 4170 Mountainview Drive and Barbara Kirchner of B- 24, Mountainview Court, are seeking damages from four physicians, including an anesthesiologist, over the Aug. 31, 1986, death of their son, Glenn D. Jr., at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown.

Named as defendants are John S. Wheeler, 1728 Lincoln St., Northampton; Kenneth Ryder, Route 145 and Spruce Street, Walnutport; Vitaly Sawyna, who practices at Sacred Heart, and anesthesiologist David Kohan, also of the hospital.

The suit says that on Aug. 31, the younger Taras was admitted to the hospital after he had suffered pain in his right lower quadrant for more than 24 hours. He was diagnosed by Ryder as having appendicitis, the suit says. He was sent to radiology for an abdominal plate and cleared for surgery at 12:45 p.m.

The suit says neither a chest X-ray nor an electrocardiograph was ordered or performed before the surgery by either Ryder or Sawyna.

Kohan administered anesthesia starting just before 1:30 p.m. At 2:40 p.m., the suit says the youth's blood pressure dropped, and he was taken to the recovery room at 2:45 p.m. At 2:47 p.m., he was discovered with no pulse or respiration, and he was pronounced dead at 5:46 p.m.

An autopsy showed that he died of cardiac failure caused by narrowing or constriction of the aorta.

Wheeler, who treated the youth from his birth until 1980, is named in the suit as negligent because, although he noted the presence of a heart murmur when the younger Taras was an infant, and also treated him for numerous respiratory ailments, the suit says he never diagnosed the youth's congenital heart disease or warned that he might be at risk during anesthesia or surgery.

The other doctors failed to take a proper medical history of the youth and otherwise failed to provide him with proper care, the suit says.