Texas anesthesiologist Raynaldo Riviera Ortiz Jr has been dubbed a ‘ medical terrorist’ after he was found guilty of putting dangerous drugs in the IV bags of his patients. This led to the death of a co-worker as well as multiple health emergencies.
As some background into Raynaldo, he obtained his Texas medical license in 1991.
In 1995, Raynaldo was arrested for assaulting his wife. The couple would later divorce. This was not the only incident in which Raynaldo would allegedly be abusive towards women. Around 2005, another woman filed for an emergency protective order against him. In 2014, he was arrested for assaulting a third woman. She also filed for an emergency protective order. Raynaldo’s neighbor Roxanne Bogdan witnessed the third assault and testified against Raynaldo during the protective order hearing.
Months after this, Raynaldo shot Roxanne’s dog with a pellet gun.
He was charged with a Class A misdemeanor (which the Texas Medical Board referred to as “a crime of moral turpitude”). He was fined $4,000, ordered to pay the dog’s veterinary bills, and given two years of community service.
Months later, he received a public reprimand and a $2,000 fine from the Texas Medical Board for failing to notify all hospitals of the charge. One board record also referred to Raynaldo’s “history of violence against women.” Despite the arrests, he was allowed to continue practicing after a 14-day suspension.
He started his own business ‘Garland Anesthesia Consultants’. That business contracted out anesthesiologists—including himself—to health-care facilities.
By 2017, it was estimated that the company was making up to $9m in revenue annually. Raynaldo purchased a Corvette, Lexus and three Mercedes vehicles. He also bought a mansion in Dallas, valued at $1.3m.
Raynaldo was known to have a fiery temper. He became irate during the pandemic when he was made to wear a mask. He shouted in the face of a coworker and security had to be called. Coworkers also said that Raynaldo could be rough with patients while they were intubated.
In 2020, Raynaldo was working at a Baylor Scott and White Surgicare Facility in Garland, Texas. In November that year, a patient was having difficulty breathing and Raynaldo apparently did not notice. After this, he stopped working at the Garland location and worked for other facilities.
After this incident, he was monitored by another physician. This person reviewed at least 30 of his patient records and prepared written reports “documenting any perceived deficiencies.” He also had to complete medical training classes and pay a $3,000 penalty. Citing Raynaldo’s “rehabilitative potential and present value to the community,” the Texas Medical Board did not revoke his license.
In 2022, Raynaldo was working at Baylor Scott and White Surgicare in North Dallas, Texas.
This info about the medical center is from Mens Health:
The North Dallas Surgicare center occupies a handsome, modernist building near the North Central Expressway. It is partly owned by physicians, which means that trained medical professionals rather than corporate bureaucrats decide how it operates. (Proponents of this model say it can result in better care.) The rest belongs to Baylor Scott & White, a health-care conglomerate that manages 48 hospitals and more than 900 patient-care sites in Texas. It employs some 7,300 doctors and 49,000 health-care workers across the state, making it the largest not-for-profit health-care entity there and one of the biggest in the country.
Mistakes happen at the center. Mistakes happen at hospitals everywhere, because medicine is not an exact science. Unexpected events occur, especially at large hospitals, given the sheer number of procedures that are done there. But what had been taking place at the North Dallas surgery center was frighteningly abnormal. At least 11 unexplained emergencies occurred with OR patients in the summer of 2022. In August alone, when Adlerstein had his near-fatal incident, the center had the same number of “transfers”—when problems require moving a patient to an emergency medical facility—as the number recorded in all of 2021. It was as if some awful curse had befallen it.
Between May and August 2022, numerous patients suffered cardiac emergencies during routine medical procedures.
In June 2022, Dr Melanie Kaspar (55) began to feel unwell. Melanie worked at the center as an anesthesiologist. She tried to work through it. One day, she took an IV bag home and intended to self-medicate and try to rehydrate herself. Her husband John helped her to set up the IV. A few minutes later, John got a call from Melanie. She was screaming into the phone.
When he reached her, John asked if the IV bag, still connected to her arm, was the cause of her agony. “No, it’s my arm and my chest!” she screamed. While John was on the phone with 911, Melanie collapsed, spoke incoherently for a few seconds, then fell silent. In a panic, John began CPR. By the time the paramedics arrived, Melanie’s heart had stopped and she passed away.
Melanie’s death was thought to have been due initially to a heart attack. After an autopsy was conducted, high levels of bupivacaine, a nerve-block medication commonly used for local anesthesia and pain management, were found in her bloodstream. They determined that the cause of death was a fatal dose of that drug, though it was unclear how she’d received it.
On August 24, 2022, an 18-year-old named Jack Adlerstein checked into the Baylor Scott & White North Dallas Surgicare center. He had come in to have an injury repaired—a deviated septum—following a dirt-bike accident. It’s a common procedure. While he was under anesthesia, the teen’s blood pressure soared to 200/150, a dangerously high figure. Fluid filled his lungs and then his heart stopped.
Dr Chad Marsden started to look over the patient files to try to find a connection between the unexplained events. He was at the center on the same day that Jack had his emergency. Dr Marsden recounted that Jack’s IV bag had been swapped out minutes before his blood pressure spiked. Dr Marsden said “ I think there might be a problem with the IV bags.” Jack’s bag was swapped for a fresh one and he was stabilized.
He was transferred to an ICU. Hours later, he awoke without the ability to speak or move, and doctors worried about lasting neurological damage. During all of this, Ashley Burks, the facility administrator, called the surgery center’s governing chair. “It’s happening again,” she said.
Dr Marsden inspected the IV bag that had been used for Jack’s procedure and he noticed a tiny puncture hole. The bag was tested and found to contain Bupivacaine, the same drug that killed Melanie. Lidocaine and epinephrine were also found.
This media release is from the US Attorney’s Office:
“A local lab analyzed fluid from the bag used during the teenager’s surgery and found bupivacaine (a nerve-blocking agent), epinephrine (a stimulant) and lidocaine (an anesthetic) — a drug cocktail that could have caused the boy’s symptoms, which included very high blood pressure, cardiac dysfunction and pulmonary edema,” the release explained. “The lab also observed a puncture in the bag.”
It became evident that someone working at the hospital was tampering with the bags.
An investigation was undertaken and the FDA became involved.
On September 9, 2022, Raynaldo’s license was suspended.
Raynaldo did not know about this until a local reporter called him. Raynaldo told her “I’m just devastated. I didn’t do it, ma’am” and insisting that the only thing he would ever add to an IV bag was antibiotics. When the reporter asked if he was concerned about the patients who had suffered emergencies, he told her, “Am I concerned? I didn’t do anything.”
Raynaldo was charged by criminal complaint in September 2022. He was indicted in October 2022 on charges of tampering with a consumer product causing death and intentional drug adulteration.
There is CCTV footage of Raynaldo getting the IV bags from the warming bin and replacing them soon after. After the bags were put back, they were taken into operating rooms where patients then experienced emergencies.
“Video also showed Ortiz mixing vials of medication and watching as victims were wheeled out by emergency responders.”
In April 2024, Raynaldo went to trial. The proceedings lasted for eight or nine days (dependent on the source)
Prosecutors found that despite his seemingly affluent lifestyle, Raynaldo was in a lot of debt. He had been assigned a public defender as he was unable to afford his own attorney. He owed several million dollars to the IRS by that point.
Evidence at trial showed that he was facing disciplinary action at the time for an alleged medical mistake made in one of his own surgeries, and that he potentially faced losing his medical license.
It was also noted that “At trial, doctors testified about the confusion they felt when their patients’ blood pressures suddenly skyrocketed.”
“Reviewing medical records, they all noted the emergencies occurred shortly after new IV bags had been hung,” the release continued, adding, “Patients recalled waking up unexpectedly intubated in intensive care units they had been transported to via emergency medical transportation services, in pain and in fear for their lives.”
“Dr. Ortiz cloaked himself in the white coat of a healer, but instead of curing pain, he inflicted it,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Leigha Simonton, said in a video statement shared on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“He assembled ticking time bombs, then sat in wait as those medical time bombs went off one by one, toxic cocktails flowing into the veins of patients who were often at their most vulnerable, lying unconscious on the operating table,” Simonton said. “We saw the patients testify. Their pain, their fear and their trauma was palpable in that courtroom.”
Raynaldo was convicted on ten charges: four counts of tampering with consumer products resulting in serious bodily injury, one count of tampering with a consumer product, and five counts of intentional adulteration of a drug. For unknown reasons, he was not charged with anything in relation to Melanie’s death.
Melanie’s husband John spoke after the proceedings. “There’s no closure. My best friend is gone,” he said shortly after. “I’ll have regrets forever for not yanking the IV bag out of her arm.” Speaking to reporters after the verdict, one juror said, “It kind of makes you question if you even want to go to a doctor yourself.”
In November 2024, Raynaldo was sentenced to 190 years in prison.
Investigators in the case released statements following his sentencing:
“The defendant betrayed the trust of patients by tampering with critical medical supplies, and the result was serious bodily injury,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of these offenses and should make clear that the department will work tirelessly to investigate and prosecute anyone who endangers patients by tampering with drugs.”
“This disgraced doctor acted no better than an armed assailant spraying bullets indiscriminately into a crowd. Dr. Ortiz tampered with random IV bags, apparently unconcerned with who he hurt. But he wielded an invisible weapon, a cocktail of heart-stopping drugs, concealed inside an IV bag designed to help patients heal,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton for the Northern District of Texas. “On at least nine separate occasions, he essentially attacked unconscious patients lying on an operating table, and even killed a colleague. I am so proud of our office’s work in bringing Dr. Ortiz to justice and bringing a measure of solace to his victims and their families.”
“Patients expect that their doctors will use only safe and effective medical products during their surgeries. The illicit tampering in this case demonstrated a gross disregard for patient safety,” said Special Agent in Charge Charles L. Grinstead of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI). “This investigation uncovered that adulterating the IV bags caused serious adverse health consequences. This sentencing is a clear demonstration that FDA will not stop pursuing and bringing to justice those who risk patients’ health and safety through their criminal actions.”
SOURCE LIST
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a62978953/raynaldo-ortiz-doctor-texas-tampering-with-iv-bags