A Dallas anesthesiologist who injected dangerous drugs into patient IV bags, leading to one death and numerous cardiac emergencies, was sentenced on Wednesday to 190 years in prison.
Raynaldo Riviera Ortiz Jr., 60, was charged by criminal complaint in September 2022 and indicted the following month on charges related to tampering with IV bags used at a local surgical center.
In April, following an eight-day trial, a jury convicted him of 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.
He was sentenced Wednesday by Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey for the Northern District of Texas, who found that Dr. Ortiz caused the death of his colleague and called his other conduct “tantamount to attempted murder.”
“The defendant betrayed the trust of patients by tampering with critical medical supplies, and the result was serious bodily injury,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
“This disgraced doctor acted no better than an armed assailant spraying bullets indiscriminately into a crowd. Dr. Ortiz tampered with random IV bags, apparently unconcerned with who he hurt. But he wielded an invisible weapon, a cocktail of heart-stopping drugs, concealed inside an IV bag designed to help patients heal,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton for the Northern District of Texas.
On at least nine separate occasions, he essentially attacked unconscious patients lying on an operating table, and even killed a colleague, said Simonton.
“Patients expect that their doctors will use only safe and effective medical products during their surgeries. The illicit tampering in this case demonstrated a gross disregard for patient safety,” said Special Agent in Charge Charles L. Grinstead of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI).
According to evidence presented at trial, between May and August 2022, numerous patients at Surgicare North Dallas suffered cardiac emergencies during routine medical procedures performed by various doctors.
About one month after the unexplained emergencies began, an anesthesiologist who had worked at the facility earlier that day died while treating herself for dehydration using an IV bag.
In August 2022, doctors at the surgical care center began to suspect tainted IV bags had caused the repeated crises after an 18-year-old patient had to be rushed to the intensive care unit in critical condition during a routine sinus surgery.
A local lab analysed fluid from the bag used during the teenager’s surgery and found bupivacaine (a nerve-blocking agent), epinephrine (a stimulant) and lidocaine (an anesthetic) — a drug cocktail that could have caused the boy’s symptoms, which included very high blood pressure, cardiac dysfunction and pulmonary edema. The lab also observed a puncture in the plastic shell that had been around the IV bag.
Evidence presented at trial showed that Ortiz surreptitiously injected IV bags of saline with epinephrine, bupivacaine and other drugs, placed them into a warming bin at the facility, and waited for them to be used in colleagues’ surgeries, knowing their patients would experience dangerous complications.
Surveillance video introduced into evidence showed Ortiz repeatedly retrieving IV bags from the warming bin and replacing them shortly thereafter, not long before the bags were carried into operating rooms where patients experienced complications.
Video also showed Ortiz mixing vials of medication and watching as victims were wheeled out by emergency responders.
Evidence at trial showed that Ortiz was facing disciplinary action at the time for an alleged medical mistake made in one of his own surgeries, and that he potentially faced losing his medical licence.
At trial, doctors testified about the confusion they felt when their patients’ blood pressures suddenly skyrocketed. Reviewing medical records, they all noted the emergencies occurred shortly after new IV bags had been hung.
Patients recalled waking up unexpectedly intubated in intensive care units they had been transported to via emergency medical transportation services, in pain and in fear for their lives.
