Dennis and Kimberly Quaid grant first interview following twins' overdose
An understandably angry Dennis and Kimberly Quaid lashed out at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in today’s issue of the Los Angeles Times in their first extended interview since the November accidental overdose of their twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, 10-weeks, at the facility. Dennis tells the newspaper he believes it was a hospital employee who first leaked news of the incident to TMZ, and that hospital staff failed to notify the Quaids of the twins’ critical medical condition for more than 12 hours after the babies received the first of two overdoses of the blood-thinning drug Heparin.
According to a state report issued last week, when a nurse attempted to flush the twins’ IV lines with Heparin the morning of Nov. 18 the babies were inadvertently given 1,000 times the recommended dosage after two pharmacy technicians stocked the pediatric unit with the wrong vials of the drug. Dennis says he and Kimberly called the hospital to check on the twins’ condition later that night and were told that the twins were "just fine."
It wasn’t until the couple arrived at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. the following morning that they learned of the overdoses, when they were met at the twins’ hospital room door by a member of the hospital’s risk management department. Inside, they found Zoe and Thomas — who had been admitted to treat routine staph infections at the site of their umbilical cords — "in incubators with cords attached to them and monitors," said Kimberly.
You could barely hold them. Every time you’d move them, the alarms would sound. . . . The stress was overwhelming.
Added Dennis,
Our kids could have been dying, and we wouldn’t have been able to come down to the hospital to say goodbye.
Click ‘continue reading’ for more of the Quaid’s interview.
Overnight, the hospital made treatment decisions for the children without consulting Dennis and Kimberly. The couple says they watched in horror as their children oozed blood from every puncture site, and at one point while a nurse changed a bandage near Thomas’ umbilical cord blood spurted so forcefully it hit a wall five-feet away. Compounding their frustration, Dennis says, is the lack of privacy the couple was shown by the hospital. Dennis and Kimberly said they made a conscious decision to keep news of the overdose quiet so that the incident could stay out of the tabloids; It was the website TMZ which ultimately broke the story, however — before the Quaids even had a chance to tell their own family members. Recalled Kimberly,
We were told that it was not a big deal. We figured we’d be home in a couple days and nobody would know any different. That wasn’t the case.
Although the twins stayed in the intensive care unit for 11 days, they’re home now and doing fine, Dennis says.
We have our babies back, and they seem to be doing great, and they’re just a lot of fun to be with. We really do feel that prayer saved them.
The twins, born Nov. 8, are the first children for Dennis and Kimberly. Dennis also has a 15-year-old son, Jack, with ex-wife Meg Ryan. Dennis and Kimberly say they haven’t yet decided whether or not they’ll sue Cedars-Sinai.
Source: LA Times
Thanks to CBB readers Kate and Melanie.
