TEEN WHO ALMOST DIED WHEN DOCTOR POISONED IV BAG SPEAKS OUT

Jack Adlerstein went into cardiac arrest during nose surgery in August of 2022
Dr Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz had injected his IV bag the day before with toxic drugs
Docs had to fight to keep the teenager alive after his heart rate hit 250 over 150

A teenager who almost died after an anesthesiologist poisoned his IV bag has spoken out for the first time after the doctor was found guilty.

Jack Adlerstein, who was 18 at the time, went into cardiac arrest during routine nose surgery at Baylor Scott and White SurgiCare in Dallas in August 2022.

The day prior, Dr. Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr had secretly filled syringes with different drugs and injected IV bags at the facility - all of which was caught on camera.

Speaking to Fox News, Adlerstein, who is now 19, said that after seeing the footage of Ortiz he thought 'you could just end the case then'.

What should have been a simple procedure for the teenager took a drastic turn after his heart rate climbed to 250 over 150.

Adlerstein told Fox that he required nose surgery after he fell while trying to ride his friend's dirt bike.

'After that, my nose was very crooked. I didn't really care, but my mom really cared. Also, [I] couldn't breathe out of one nostril. It's not as bad as it seems', he said.

During the procedure, doctor's frantically tried to figure out why his heart rate had skyrocketed, later testifying they had never seen such numbers.

At one point, doctors could no longer feel his pulse - with fluid also being found in his lungs.

Another doctor, Chad Marsden had been in the hospital at the time when he saw the commotion in the surgery.

Dr. Marsden had something similar happen to a patient days prior and told Adlerstein's surgeon Dr. Thomas Hung to swap the IV bag.

A minute after the new IV bag had been administered, Dr. Hung testified that the patient's condition stabilized.

Jack added: 'There's not really words to thank someone who saved your life. The next 24 hours were really, really hard for me.

'I wasn't able to talk, breathe. They had to put me on a breathing mask. They gave me a cup of water and I was holding the cup of water and they took it away, and I wasn't able to move my hand for hours, I was frozen.'

His father Dovi Adlerstein added: 'We were told there was a real fear that there might be lasting neurological damage.'

The elder Adlerstein added it was unclear what would have happened without Dr. Marsden.

He said: 'He is the reason we have this guy around and most days we're rather fond of him. We're forever in his debt. All of his doctors really.

'Jack, as far as we can tell, we hope doesn't really have long-lasting effects, but some of the other victims do.

'This has changed their lives. I hope [Ortiz] can comprehend the magnitude of what he did and spend the rest of his life marinating in it.'

On Friday, Ortiz was found guilty in federal court following a weeklong trial into his actions.

A colleague's death spurred the doctor's downfall - after she took home one of the tainted bags to treat her dehydration and suddenly died.

Dallas police had opened an investigation into the death of Dr. Melanie Kaspar, 55, who died from a cardiac arrests minutes after administering herself with an IV bag.

Kaspar, who was also an anesthesiologist at the hospital, had taken the bag home from work after feeling dehydrated.

A toxicology report found her body contained the same drug in the IV bags Ortiz handled.

A Medical Board's report found that the IV bag which killed Kaspar was one that had been handled by Ortiz.

Just before the incidents, Ortiz was placed under investigation and faced a disciplinary inquiry against him after a patient stopped breathing under his care during a routine procedure.

John Kaspar, Dr. Melanie Kaspar's widower, said shortly after the verdict: 'There's no closure. My best friend is gone.

'I don't think he ever looked me in the eye. It's almost like you have so many emotions you can't sift them out, you get flooded.

'Time stops. If you are lucky, you have a lot of friends who can shove you along. I've had many good friends.

'They've done exactly what was required of them. I thank every last one of them.'

Just before the incidents, Ortiz was placed under investigation and faced a disciplinary inquiry against him after a patient stopped breathing under his care..

An affidavit explained how Ortiz 'deviated from the standard of care by failing to maintain the patient's airway and failing to document critical aspects of the incident'

It also revealed how he had expressed unhappiness about the probe, at one point telling a doctor how he believed the center was attempting to 'crucify' him.

Another doctor told cops how Ortiz told him how losing his job at the center 'would be financially 'devastating'.

Ortiz was convicted on four counts of tampering with consumer products resulting in serious bodily injury, one count of tampering with a consumer product and five counts of intentional adulteration of a drug, prosecutors said.

A sentencing date has not yet been set for Ortiz, but he faces up to 190 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton for the northern district of Texas, who oversaw the case, celebrated jurors verdict a video statement.

'Dr. Ortiz cloaked himself in the white coat of a healer, but instead of curing pain, he inflicted it,' she said,

'He assembled ticking time bombs, then sat in wait as those medical time bombs went off one by one, toxic cocktails flowing into the veins of patients who were often at their most vulnerable, lying unconscious on the operating table.

'We saw the patients testify. Their pain, their fear and their trauma was palpable in that courtroom.'

2024-04-16T14:43:00Z dg43tfdfdgfd