Sheldon Sizemore survived having surgery on his abdomen. But according to what may be the first wrongful-death case of its kind, he couldn't survive the horror of being awake while surgeons performed the procedure.

The Baptist minister from Raleigh County, W.Va., killed himself in February 2006 –- two weeks after he allegedly suffered the trauma of having surgery without anesthesia. The phenomenon of anesthesia awareness is associated with psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a suit filed last month, Sizemore's family say anestheliogist Dr. Bruce Cannon and nurse anesthetist Larry Rupe administered drugs to paralyze him, but failed to give him the "inhalational anesthesia" that would render him unconscious and unable to experience pain. They did not realize their mistake until 16 minutes after the first incision.

“One would be hard pressed to imagine a more disturbing scenario than having one’s body cut open while totally awake and alert, but totally helpless to move, scream or alert others to the situation,” the complaint says.

A few anesthesia awareness suits have been filed around the country, but none apparently involved a patient who committed suicide. “This may be the first verifiable suicide that can be directly linked to anesthesia awareness,” Carol Weihrer, founder of the Anesthesia Awareness Campaign, said.

Sizemore had his exploratory laparotomy at Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley. After recognizing their error, the suit says, Cannon and Rupe gave him an amnesia-inducing drug and, even though he was already exhibiting psychological symptoms, he was discharged a day after the surgery.

According to plaintiffs' attorney Tony L. O'Dell (Berthold, Tiana & O'Dell, Charleston, W.Va.), Sizemore's trauma only came to light when nurses in his family looked at the medical records after his death.

Sizemore had no history of mental illness and, the plaintiffs allege, the failure to advise him of the “unmistakable error ... caused Mr. Sizemore to be more tormented because he questioned whether he was experiencing really occurred.” Among other things, he complained of not being able to breathe and of people trying to bury him alive.

In some anesthesia awareness cases, defendants have pointed to how difficult it is to measure the depth of anesthesia. Doctors have compared it to flying in fog.

But O'Dell believes that isn't an issue in the Sizemore case since the medical records "reflect that the inhalational anesthesia simply wasn’t turned on for 29 minutes."

Raleigh Anesthesia Associates, which employed Cannon and Rupe, also faces the problem of defending the alleged post-operative negligence. In October, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations alerted hospitals in October that they should provide mental health services to patients who experience anesthesia awareness.

Plaintiffs in two anesthesia awareness cases in Virginia won awards of $150,000 and $350,000. In 2003, a California appeals court held in an unpublished opinion that an anesthesiologist was not liable for failing to disclose the risk of anesthesia awareness.

By Matthew Heller
4/18/07