The same hospital where a surgeon amputated the wrong leg of a patient is acknowledging another mistake - two weeks later - that led to the death of a 77-year-old man.
Leo Alfonso died March 3 after a respiratory technician at University Community Hospital mistakenly removed his ventilator, hospital officials said.Alfonso died less than an hour later, though health care workers tried for 30 minutes to revive him, hospital spokesman John Andreas said Sunday.
The technician was supposed to have taken another patient off a ventilator, Andreas said.
The employee should have checked the patient's identity visually, by speaking to him, by reading his chart and by checking his identification bracelet, Andreas said.
The hospital said the worker, who has been employed for 21/2 years, has a clean record. She was suspended pending an investigation.
The hospital immediately reviewed its identification procedures after Alfonso's death and all employees providing respiratory care were retrained, President Norm Stein said Saturday.
"We determined that our procedures work, but in this case they were not followed," he said.
On Feb. 20, a surgeon at the hospital amputated a diabetic man's left leg below the knee, though it was his right leg that was supposed to have been removed.
Doctors at another hospital considered trying to save Willie King's remaining leg but eventually had to amputate it below the knee.
University Community Hospital blamed the amputation mistake on a communication breakdown. It announced March 1 it was beginning new operating-room safeguards - such as marking "NO" on a good limb - to prevent similar mistakes.