27-Month-Old Girl Dies After Suffering Cardiac Arrest During General Anesthesia at Eye Clinic

A 27-month-old girl who fell into cardiac arrest while receiving anesthesia prior to surgery at an eye clinic in Ulsan has ultimately passed away.

According to the Ulsan Jungbu Police Station and other sources, the victim, a girl identified as A, who had been receiving hospital treatment following the incident earlier this month, died on the afternoon of October 13.

This comes 11 days after the incident occurred.

Child A suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing general anesthesia on October 2 at an eye clinic in Jung-gu, Ulsan, to treat entropion, a condition where the eyelashes turn inward and irritate the cornea.

While receiving emergency treatment at a nearby hospital, her heartbeat was restored, but she remained unconscious and was transferred to a university hospital in another region, where she had been receiving treatment.

At the time of the incident, the eye clinic stated that oxygen was not properly supplied during the anesthesia process, and explained that the responsible anesthesiologist had also admitted to a mistake.

Following the death of Child A, police changed the charges against three individuals—the hospital director, the anesthesiologist, and the surgeon—from professional negligence resulting in injury to professional negligence resulting in death.

Police conducted an autopsy yesterday to determine the exact cause of death, while accelerating the investigation by recently executing a search and seizure at the hospital to secure surgery-related evidence.

Some of the nursing staff present at the time of the incident have been summoned for questioning, and police are currently coordinating a schedule for the anesthesiologist's appearance.

The possibility of an improper connection in the oxygen respirator circuit, which assists breathing during anesthesia, has been raised as a cause of the accident.

It was reported that the freelance anesthesiologist in charge of Child A's anesthesia at the time explained to the bereaved family that, upon inspecting the equipment a few days after the accident, it appeared that the two circuits for air intake and exhaust had been connected in reverse.

Police plan to verify the connection status of the circuits at the time of the accident and whether there was medical malpractice, based on statements from related parties, the autopsy results, and evaluations from specialized institutions.

They are also investigating the circumstances under which the operating room CCTV failed to record at the time of the incident.

Authorities plan to determine whether there was a violation of the Medical Service Act after seeking advisory opinions on when the legal obligation to record applies.

Recently sharing the news of her daughter's death on social media, Child A's mother urged for the truth to be uncovered, stating that she wants to know if this was a preventable accident, and if it could have been prevented, why it was not.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.