Police on Sept. 14 arrested a Dallas anesthesiologist on a federal warrant as authorities investigate whether the physician tampered with IV bags at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare North Dallas, leading to a colleague's death and patient complications, according to ABC affiliate WFAA.
The arrest comes about a week after the Texas Medical Board suspended the license of 59-year-old Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr., MD. The board's suspension order said surveillance footage at the surgery center showed him placing IV bags into a warmer in the hallway outside operating rooms. According to the order, there was evidence that IV bags from the warmer had been tampered with. They were found to contain bupivacaine, but were not labeled as such.
In June, another physician at the Dallas surgery center took a tampered IV bag home with her when she was sick to rehydrate. She "almost immediately had a serious cardiac event and died" after giving herself the IV, the report said. Her cause of death was ruled "accidental bupivacaine toxicity." Tests run on another bag administered to a patient who experienced a severe heart complication during a routine surgery found it contained similar drugs "that should not have been in the IV bag."
A local attorney told WFAA he now represents seven patients claiming to have experienced severe complications while undergoing routine surgical procedures at the surgery center between May and August.
Baylor Scott & White in a statement sent to local news outlets Sept. 14 said it paused all operations at the facility on Aug. 24 and alerted authorities "immediately upon determining an IV bag had potentially been compromised." The facility will remain closed as the investigation continues, and the health system said Dr. Ortiz was no longer a member of the medical staff at Surgicare North Dallas when the state's medical board suspended his license.
Dr. Ortiz is being held at the Dallas County Jail and a hearing is scheduled for Sept. 16, according to WFAA.