Carbon Dioxide for Oxygen: $16.5 Million Federal Verdict Against Tripler Army Medical Center
A federal judge awarded $16.5 million to the family of a newborn who suffered permanent brain damage after an Army pediatrician at Tripler Army Medical Center administered carbon dioxide instead of oxygen for 42 minutes following his birth. It was the largest single personal-injury judgment for an individual in Hawaii history at the time.
What happened
On January 14, 2005, a newborn delivered by Caesarean section at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu received carbon dioxide instead of oxygen in the minutes after birth. Army Maj. Danielle Bird, the attending pediatrician, administered the gas from a cylinder that had no place in a delivery suite: a carbon dioxide tank ordinarily used for stomach surgeries. The error went uncorrected for roughly 42 minutes, until the tank ran close to empty.
The oxygen deprivation caused severe hypoxic brain damage. The child, born to Army staff sergeant Dwight Peterson and his wife Shalay, was left unable to speak, eat, or breathe without mechanical support and would require around-the-clock nursing care for the rest of his life. Neurological testimony established that no meaningful recovery was anticipated.
The Peterson family filed suit against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. L. Richard Fried Jr. of Cronin, Fried, Sekiya, Kekina and Fairbanks represented the family. In July 2006, following pre-trial proceedings, the government conceded sole liability for the child's injuries. Because Dr. Bird was never deposed under oath after that concession, the precise chain of events that placed the wrong cylinder in the operating room was never formally established in testimony.
The case moved to a bench trial before U.S. District Judge David Ezra on damages alone. Fried presented evidence of lifetime care costs, projected medical expenses running decades into the future, lost earning capacity, and the physical and emotional toll on both the child and his parents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry Yee contested the damages figure for the government.
Judge Ezra entered judgment for $16,497,263 in October 2006. Of that total, $12.2 million was allocated to lifetime medical expenses. The balance addressed lost future income, mental anguish, and pain and suffering. Fried noted that no single personal-injury award in Hawaii's history had reached that level for one individual. No appeal was filed. In the aftermath, Tripler removed portable gas cylinders from its operating rooms and fitted all Caesarean delivery suites with wall-mounted piped oxygen lines.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Cronin, Fried, Sekiya, Kekina & Fairbanks
All Cronin, Fried, Sekiya, Kekina & Fairbanks proven verdicts →After a Chevron-USA tank-farm explosion at Honolulu Harbor burned two Shell Oil employees who later died of their injuries, a Hawaii Circuit Court jury awarded their families a combined $27.7 million in January 1983, then the largest civil verdict in state history.
A federal bench trial awarded $24.7 million to a Navy family after Tripler Army Medical Center physicians failed to administer IV antibiotics for roughly 48 hours following a post-delivery infection, leaving the patient with permanent kidney failure.
The City and County of Honolulu agreed in October 2021 to pay $10 million to settle a wrongful-death claim brought by the family of cardiothoracic anesthesiologist William Travis Lau, who was struck and killed on a Kakaako sidewalk when a drunk driver fleeing an HPD high-speed pursuit veered off Ala Moana Boulevard in January 2019.
In August 2007, U.S. District Judge David Ezra found Tripler Army Medical Center negligent in monitoring a hospitalized infant whose breathing failed in May 2004, leaving him with severe, permanent brain damage. After a nonjury trial under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the court entered judgment of more than $9.4 million for the boy and his parents. Attorney L. Richard Fried, Jr. represented the family.
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