Household of stripling who died after surgical procedure sues John Muir, Stanford

The helicopter carrying Amin Noroozi landed at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek lower than an hour after the 17-year-old broke his neck whereas swimming within the ocean.

Amin, a varsity soccer participant, monitor and discipline athlete and wrestler at Acalanes High School, had misplaced feeling beneath his chest. But after an emergency surgical procedure to stabilize his backbone on April 13, his mother and father and youthful sister stated he moved a finger, and indicated he might sense a contact on his leg.

Although it was unclear whether or not Amin would stroll once more, docs advised his mother and father, Ofelia and Payman Noroozi, that he was younger and robust, which might assist along with his bodily rehabilitation and restoration.

“We were very hopeful,” Ofelia Noroozi advised the Chronicle. “Everything seemed pretty OK, like they knew what they were doing.”

Over the subsequent 48 hours, Amin’s temperature soared to 109 levels, his electrolyte counts spiraled, and his coronary heart charge plummeted. His mother and father have alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Contra Costa Superior County Court that John Muir docs did not handle his more and more crucial situation. Amin died on April 17, simply 4 days after arriving at John Muir.

“Despite the successful surgery, the critical post-surgical care was deficient, disorganized, unsupervised and spun out of control, directly and unnecessarily causing Amin Noroozi’s suffering and death,” in line with the lawsuit, which alleges that John Muir ought to have transferred Amin to UCSF-Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, the closest top-level pediatric trauma heart.

The criticism names John Muir, the neurocritical care doctor who handled Amin, Dr. Sandeep Walia, and John Muir’s affiliate associate, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, which the lawsuit alleges has allowed the neighborhood hospital to fraudulently current itself to the general public as being able to treating extremely advanced medical situations.

John Muir declined to touch upon particular allegations or particulars of Amin’s care, citing the pending litigation and affected person privateness necessities.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Mr. Noroozi,” the hospital stated in a press release. “John Muir Health is a nationally recognized provider that treats complex, high-acuity cases using evidence-based protocols and multidisciplinary teams, and when appropriate we coordinate transfers through established regional networks.”

The hospital stated its partnership with Stanford improves entry to subspecialty experience and maintains its high-quality care.

“We stand behind the professionalism and dedication of our physicians, nurses, and staff, and we remain focused on patient safety, quality, and continuous improvement,” John Muir stated.

Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Dr. Sandeep Walia, the neurocritical care doctor who handled Amin, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

In 2015, John Muir partnered with Stanford Medicine Children’s Health to open a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, or PICU, for critically unwell youngsters. Leaders of each hospital techniques stated on the time that the alliance would permit John Muir to supply top-notch care to youngsters within the East Bay.

Although Amin was not handled in John Muir’s PICU, Ofelia and Payman Noroozi are the newest mother and father to accuse the neighborhood hospital of buying and selling on its partnership with Stanford to tackle instances past its experience, resulting in probably preventable deaths.

A 2022 Chronicle investigative sequence detailed the deaths of 4 youngsters at John Muir’s PICU, which high medical specialists stated appeared to replicate the hospital’s low affected person volumes and inexperience treating exceptionally sick youngsters. Those youngsters included 2-year-old Ailee Jong, who died in 2019 throughout a posh liver surgical procedure at John Muir. The hospital authorised the process — its first-ever pediatric liver resection — regardless of warnings from employees members that the unit wasn’t ready.

Ailee’s mother and father, who’ve an ongoing lawsuit towards the hospital, additionally allege that it was the Stanford affiliation that reassured them John Muir was able to treating their daughter. John Muir and the docs concerned in Ailee’s care have denied the allegations. A choose is predicted to set a trial date for subsequent 12 months.

Following the Chronicle’s reporting, federal and state well being inspectors discovered John Muir’s PICU had violated rules, forcing corrections and prompting threats to tug funding and shut the unit.

Ofelia and Payman Noroozi, who dwell in Lafayette, stated they knew nothing about this historical past as emergency medical specialists airlifted Amin to John Muir. Amin had been born there and as Ofelia and Payman researched the surgeon on-line and spoke to buddies, they stated the Stanford connection gave them confidence their son would obtain glorious care.

“At that point, I was like, we know we have the best people working on him,” stated Payman Noroozi. “At no point was there talk of him dying.”

Amin was a rambunctious, outgoing and social baby, who confirmed maturity and talent past his youth. He fell in love with scooters at an early age, so the household looked for skate parks of their hometown of Lafayette and throughout the East Bay. There, Amin would befriend the older children and ultimately constructed his personal scooter from scratch.

Although Amin acquired good grades, Ofelia recalled that he wasn’t significantly studious, typically coming to her for assist the night time earlier than a college challenge was due. Ofelia, who was born in Honduras, remembered laughing with Amin final college 12 months as she tried to information him via a Spanish class presentation, regardless of his restricted Spanish.

“The whole thing was a disaster,” she recalled, “but the two of us had a blast.”

When the household moved to a brand new home near Acalanes High in Lafayette, Ofelia and Payman stated they grew to become conscious of an older neighbor with medical issues. Amin gravitated to him and shortly, the neighbor would yell out Amin’s title, and the teenager would stroll over, serving to him arrange his tv, web and radio.

Another time, Amin sat subsequent to a lady he discovered crying on the curb of a neighborhood grocery retailer parking zone and spoke to the stranger for greater than an hour, his mother and father stated. She attended Amin’s funeral.

“He never sugar coated anything, he was so authentic,” Ofelia stated. “He literally told you the truth in a way that wasn’t hurtful.”

In center college, he performed flag soccer. By highschool, he wore No. 51 and performed offensive and defensive position.

“Amin fell in love with football,” Ofelia stated. “Not just with football but his teammates and coaches.”

After soccer season, he joined the monitor and discipline workforce, throwing shotput and discus. And as a result of his father wrestled in highschool, he joined the Acalanes workforce and certified for the North Coast Section Championship. His father referred to as him a “gentle giant.”

The morning of April 13, Amin gave his mom a kiss earlier than leaving along with his girlfriend to Stinson Beach, a preferred Marin County shoreline Amin had visited many occasions. That Sunday was a shocking spring day, and a bunch of East Bay highschool children met to hang around and swim.

A half hour after organising, Amin and his girlfriend Audrey Martin, additionally an Acalanes High junior on the time, bumped into the chilly Pacific Ocean for a fast dip, she recalled. As they waded into the salty, gray knee-deep water, a small wave rose. Audrey dove via earlier than it broke.

When she surfaced, Amin was floating face down within the water, she stated. Audrey thought he was joking, however when she flipped Amin over he advised her he couldn’t really feel his legs. Authorities would later say that they believed his head struck a sand bar. Audrey stated she screamed for assist and teenagers from Acalanes and close by Campolindo excessive faculties rushed to tug Amin from the water.

“I was really scared and really nervous,” stated Audrey, now 17. “He was an athletic guy and he loved to do stuff. It’s just really scary when someone says they can’t move their limbs.”

A medical helicopter arrived for Amin. Paramedics decided the closest Marin County hospital, a Level 3 trauma heart, was insufficient for his extreme accidents, the lawsuit alleges. Instead, he was airlifted to John Muir, a Level 2 grownup trauma heart, bypassing UCSF-Benioff Children’s hospital in Oakland, a Level 1 pediatric trauma heart, the best caliber.

“A community hospital like John Muir does not have the resources to treat complex cases such as Amin’s,” stated legal professional Dan Horowitz, co-counsel for the Noroozi household. “They should have transferred him 15 miles down the road to UCSF Benioff and he would have survived.”

Amin’s mom was working within the household’s meals truck when she acquired the decision.

It was Amin’s quantity, however his girlfriend was on the opposite finish. Amin was damage, Ofelia recalled the woman saying. He damage his neck and couldn’t really feel his legs. They raced residence.

The telephone rang once more. This time it was Amin as Audrey held a telephone to his ear, his mom recalled.

“Hi Baba,” Ofelia stated.

“Hi Mom, I got hurt,” he stated. He defined he wasn’t in ache, however he had misplaced feeling beneath his chest. Amin’s girlfriend took the cell and advised the household to fulfill them at John Muir.

Payman started calling family and friends. Was John Muir the fitting place to be?

They all agreed, he recalled, the Walnut Creek facility had topnotch credentials. Online, Payman learn the way it supplied Stanford degree care as a part of its partnership.

However, the lawsuit claims that John Muir ought to have transferred Amin upon studying the severity of his damage. They allege John Muir was out of its depth because it didn’t deal with such extreme instances frequently like surrounding tertiary hospitals, corresponding to youngsters’s hospitals in Oakland and Palo Alto.

“Calling yourself Stanford does not make you Stanford,” the swimsuit stated, referring to John Muir Health as JMH. “Yet JMH has constructed an elaborate, systematic branding scheme designed to create the false impression that patients receiving care at JMH are receiving Stanford-level medical care.”

The X-ray contained unhealthy information, the physician defined shortly after Amin’s arrival. He had shattered his C-5 vertebrae and broken his backbone. While he might partially transfer his arms and shoulders, he couldn’t transfer his palms or something in his decrease physique. The physician stated he was paralyzed.

“Excuse me?!” Amin advised the physician, in line with his mom. “Tell me again, I don’t think I heard you right.”

“I’m sorry buddy, you are paralyzed from the chest down,” the physician stated.

Amin turned towards Ofelia.

“Mom, I want to cry but I can’t,” Amin advised her. “The tears are not coming.”

“Mi amor, I will take you anywhere in the world. I will find a way to get you better,” she stated.

Hours after his arrival, nurses wheeled Amin into surgical procedure, the place a surgeon eliminated a portion of his vertebrae and fused three collectively to stabilize his backbone.

“People around us were saying they are the best. They have surgeons from Stanford,” Payman recalled. “Even the nurse was saying this is something that we see all the time. It is nothing that is new to us, so that made me feel better.”

The surgical procedure gave the impression to be successful.

Still sedated and with tubes stopping him from talking, Amin wagged his finger after his sister Sahar joked with him that if he didn’t get higher quickly she’d begin driving his BMW. Not lengthy after, a health care provider poked Amin’s decrease physique asking if he might really feel her contact his leg. At one spot, Amin nodded sure.

His mother and father began researching a rehabilitation heart in Colorado.

A catastrophic neck damage can disrupt the communication between the mind and the physique’s autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary capabilities like physique temperature regulation and blood strain. Constant monitoring is required. The lawsuit claims John Muir employees fell brief in Amin’s post-surgery care.

When Amin suffered cardiovascular instability, the hospital “inappropriately treated” him with the incorrect medication for his situation, the household alleges. It induced his coronary heart to gradual, the swimsuit stated.

Amin additionally developed extreme hypokalemia, critically low potassium ranges that may result in cardiac arrest. The hospital did little to convey it up, the lawsuit alleges, and after they lastly responded, they overcorrected, sending his potassium ranges hovering dangerously within the different path — ranges approaching these utilized by veterinarians for euthanasia, the lawsuit claims.

In addition, the lawsuit claims the hospital did not diagnose and deal with an an infection and indicators of sepsis. When testing was carried out, a protein launched into the bloodstream to battle bacterial infections was at such an elevated degree it indicated sepsis had been raging for days unchecked, the swimsuit stated.

Amin’s fever rose to 109 levels and remained elevated for greater than 12 hours, in line with the swimsuit. The hospital solely administered an over-the-counter fever reducer, the household alleges.

“Amin was allowed to overheat so that his entire metabolic system was off the charts,” Horowitz stated. “No parent would let their child run a 109 fever without massive intervention, why did John Muir basically sit back and watch?”

The hospital indicated it used cooling blankets at one level, in line with the swimsuit, however the hospital failed to make use of one in every of its extra highly effective Arctic Sun cooling units designed to regulate hyperthermia in critically unwell sufferers till moments earlier than his coronary heart stopped.

After getting back from the cafeteria on the afternoon of April 17, Payman discovered Amin’s room in chaos. Multiple docs and nurses took turns with chest compressions on his son.

Daryoosh Khashayar, a household buddy who can be representing Ofelia and Payman as an legal professional, walked in anticipating to greet Amin. Instead, he heard Payman screaming and folks yelling “Code Blue!”

Ofelia and Sahar arrived quickly after, holding Amin’s palms for greater than 20 minutes as nurses carried out CPR.

Doctors declared Amin lifeless at 3:41 p.m.

Payman stated he requested a health care provider what occurred and he repeatedly stated: “I don’t know.” Ofelia, Payman and Sahar stayed within the room with Amin for hours, as phrase unfold within the foyer the place greater than 100 buddies, in addition to Amin’s coaches, had gathered.

The community raised almost $200,000 for the household with buddies, household and rival groups donating cash and sending condolences. Now, days after what would have been Amin’s closing Homecoming dance, the household stated it needs accountability.

“We just don’t want it to happen again,” Ofelia stated. “We cannot bring my son back, we cannot take away the pain. We lost someone extremely valuable to this world, he had his whole life ahead of him and it got cut short because of mistakes that could have been prevented.”