Hospital admits liability for Tura boy’s brain damage

However, for the last three years Mick and Suzanne Reynolds have been locked in a traumatic legal battle with the Southern NSW Local Health District (SNSWLHD) after their 14-year-old son was brain damaged during a procedure at Bega Hospital in 2015.

Now after liability has been admitted by the SNSWLHD, a resolution has been approved and the family is talking for the first time about the heartbreaking events that left them fighting for justice.

In 2015 Suzanne and Mick Reynolds' son Kieran was a lively Year 9 student at Lumen Christi with his future before him. Today he spends his time on a special pressure bed, he is blind, unable to talk and a quadriplegic, requiring 24-hour care.

Mick and Suzanne, both qualified nurses who worked at Bega Hospital, gave up their jobs to look after Kieran full time.

Mick said following a bout of flu during the winter of 2015 Kieran’s auto-immune system over-reacted and he had to be flown to Randwick Hospital for treatment of acute encephalitic illness. 

In the early morning of September 18, 2015, Kieran became agitated and combative, which indicated a relapse of his encephalitic illness. He presented to Bega Hospital and arrangements were made for him to be airlifted back to Randwick. As before, Kieran was to be sedated and ventilated for transfer, something Mick said was a very straightforward procedure.

“Suddenly we heard the code blue alert and we know it’s our son that needs resuscitation,” Mick said.

“I asked how long he was down for (how long he had been without oxygen) and was told it was only three or four minutes. I was given to believe there was no problem.”

In fact it was 26 minutes before Kieran was re-intubated and his blood oxygen level increased to 90 per cent within minutes.

The endotracheal tube was not positioned in Kieran’s trachea. A capnograph (showing the amount of carbon dioxide expelled) was available to assist with intubation, but neither the anaesthetist nor the attending nursing staff at Bega Hospital followed the practice of commencing capnography immediately after intubation. The incorrectly placed tube meant that air was going into Kieran’s stomach.

But as Kieran was revived and flown to Sydney, nether Mick or Suzanne had been told of the full length of time their son had been without oxygen.

On arrival at Randwick the decision was made to keep Kieran in an induced coma and it wasn’t until almost 48 hours later that he was was able to have an MRI scan, after which the doctors said they would discuss the situation with Mick and Suzanne.

“We went back to ICU, the atmosphere was strange and around 10 people file in. Everyone is asked to introduce themselves and as they go around the table we hear 'head of legal services', 'grief counsellor',” Mick said.

It is then that the team at Randwick break the terrible news that Kieran was without oxygen for over 20 minutes and they were giving him only 24-48 hours to live.

“We were there for two hours, I’m arguing, we’re both crying. There were scant records of the event at Bega,” Mick said.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) revealed there were more areas of Kieran’s brain functioning than first thought, but there were concerns he wouldn’t be able to breathe on his own and Suzanne was adamant he should not have a tracheotomy.

“We had the priest in and the whole family was there. He didn’t breathe initially and the whole room held its breath. I can still visualise all of us in that ICU room,” Mick said.

Kieran spent six months in hospital before he came home to Tura Beach.

The Reynolds' lawyer, Yevgeny Bagrin of Slater and Gordon, said that in the proceedings both defendants admitted breach of their respective duties of care to Kieran, and that such breach caused Kieran to be deprived of adequate oxygen for period of about 26 minutes causing profound disabilities resulting from the consequential brain injury. 

“This is a tragic case that could have been avoided but for the defendants’ breach of duty of care. Instead this young man’s whole life that was going to be ahead of him, was taken away. This has had a profound impact on Kieran’s family and his parents have lost the opportunity to watch their son grow and flourish and his siblings have been deprived of the true friend they once had,” Mr Bagrin said. 

Mick said it was never about the money but enacting change. They have been asked to take part in an educational medical video to help explain the impacts of not following the correct produces can have, something they agree they want to do.   

In the meantime Kieran, now 17, has received some assistance from a new technology, only introduced into Australia in 2017, the Mollii suit.

Six weeks ago Kieran started wearing the suit which produces low level electric current to stimulate  the antagonist to the spastic muscles. The suit is used for people with spasticity due to cerebral palsy, stroke, brain damage and spinal cord injuries.