Dallas doc gets 190 years for injecting IV bags with heart-stopping drugs

A Dallas anesthesiologist has been sentenced to 190 years successful situation for injecting “heart-stopping drugs” into IV bags astatine the surgical halfway wherever helium worked, starring to the decease of a co-worker and “numerous cardiac emergencies,” national prosecutors said Wednesday.

Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr. injected IV bags of saline with a nerve-blocking cause and different unsafe drugs astatine Surgicare North Dallas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. He past waited for the bags to beryllium utilized successful surgeries performed by his colleagues — each portion “knowing their patients would acquisition unsafe complications.”

The 60-year-old anesthesiologist was arrested successful September 2022 and indicted by a expansive assemblage a period later.

Earlier this year, aft an eight-day proceedings and 7 hours of deliberation, a assemblage convicted Ortiz of 4 counts of tampering with user products resulting successful superior bodily injury, 1 number of tampering with a user merchandise and 5 counts of intentional adulteration of a drug.

An probe into the disgraced doc began conscionable implicit 2 years ago, aft several patients astatine the Dallas country halfway suffered cardiac emergencies during regular aesculapian procedures performed by antithetic doctors betwixt May and August 2022.

The “unexplained emergencies” began 2 days aft Ortiz was notified of a disciplinary enquiry stemming from an incidental during which helium allegedly “deviated from the modular of care,” according to the transgression complaint.

During that time, an anesthesiologist who besides worked astatine the installation died portion treating herself for dehydration utilizing an IV bag, according to prosecutors.

Ortiz, who had a past of disciplinary actions against him, besides complained to different doctors that the halfway was trying to “crucify” him, prosecutors said.

Surveillance video presented successful tribunal showed Ortiz “repeatedly retrieving IV bags from the warming bin” earlier replacing them a abbreviated clip later. It besides showed Ortiz “mixing vials of medicine and watching arsenic victims were wheeled retired by exigency responders.”

Ortiz was sentenced Wednesday by Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey, who recovered he’d caused the decease of his workfellow and called his different acts “tantamount to attempted murder.”

“This disgraced doc acted nary amended than an equipped assailant spraying bullets indiscriminately into a crowd,” U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton said Wednesday successful a statement. “Dr. Ortiz tampered with random IV bags, seemingly unconcerned with who helium hurt. But helium wielded an invisible weapon, a cocktail of heart-stopping drugs, concealed wrong an IV container designed to assistance patients heal.”