A routine epidural turns deadly

Barely 12 hours later, Chris says the happiness of becoming a father was overtaken by the fear that he might be losing his wife. Julie had been running a fever all night, and had gone into convulsions.

Chris LeMoult: And then it was like her pupils like dilated. And like she was looking at me like she wasn’t looking at me anymore. 

At 2:40 a.m., Julie was rushed to intensive care. 

Chris LeMoult: I couldn’t even ride the elevator with her.  And I just ran down the flight of stairs down to the ICU.  And I ran back there with her.  And she’s having seizures the whole way.  And I get there and they ask me to—“Oh, I’m sorry sir, you have to wait out in the waiting room.”

Thompson: And that must have been a nightmare.

Chris LeMoult: Oh yeah, I’m sitting back here, and I’m sitting alone in a waiting room by myself.

How can an apparently healthy, 28-year-old woman go downhill so quickly while in a hospital? Desperate to find an answer, doctors perform a spinal tap on Julie. The news is not good.

An infection from an unknown source... and a painful choice
Julie has meningitis: an inflammation in the brain and spinal cord which is causing her brain to swell. Meningitis can very quickly cause irreversible brain damage.

Lab tests show Julie’s meningitis is caused by an infection. Her family is called back to the hospital.

Bruce Ellis, Julie's father: Chris said “Julie is in trouble, you have to come to the hospital right away.” So...we were out of here in a flash, not knowing exactly what happened.”

At the hospital, Chris is being told by a doctor Julie’s infection may have been passed along to the baby.

Chris LeMoult: I’m thinking, “Oh no.” I mean like—“Now my son’s gonna be sick.”

It’s now about 4 a.m., Logan started on antibiotics and placed in quarantine in pediatric intensive care.

More testing comes back and Chris gets more devastating news. Julie’s brain shows massive edema. The doctor says Julie has massive brain damage.

Chris LeMoult: “Are you saying that Julie might die from this?” And she said, “Oh yes, that’s an extremely real possibility.” 

Chris rushes back to Julie’s side.

Thompson: And was she conscious?

Chris LeMoult: No, she’s on life support. It was like, “How does this go so wrong?” At this point, we were just thinking, “What can be done to save her life?”

The doctor’s tell him nothing can be done: Julie will never wake up. Chris says he isn’t ready to let go. So, he sits alone with Julie, just holding her hand, as he had all day.

Chris LeMoult: And I asked myself, why did this happen to Julie? I don’t understand.

Thompson: Think you will be ever able to answer that?

Chris LeMoult: No, no.

Less than 12 hours ago, he was celebrating Logan’s birth. Now, Julie is near death. And Chris and the family have a terrible choice— keep Julie alive on life support, or let her go. 

Bruce Ellis: And there was a time to say goodbye. So we did.

Thompson: For all intents and purposes she was gone.

Bruce Ellis: She was gone.

Thompson: And she wasn’t going to come back.

Bruce Ellis: Her soul was in heaven, and her body was just left with us. So we said goodbye.

Donna Ellis: I know she would have been a great mom, and now we just hope that she’s guiding all of us to be what she wanted to be to Logan.

What happened to Julie LeMoult?
Julie LeMoult's autopsy found she died from “acute bacterial menin-geo-encephalitis”—a swelling of the brain caused by infection. Hospital records show that it the infection was strep— the same type of strep that causes strep throat. It’s spread by coughing, sneezing and touching.

But the question is, how did Julie get the infection, and how could it kill her so quickly?

In a letter to “Dateline,” Sibley Hospital officials say Julie’s “death was not the result of a hospital acquired infection.”

So, did she already have it when she arrived at the hospital that morning?

Chris LeMoult: I know she didn’t walk into the hospital with it.

Thompson: Are you sure?

Chris LeMoult: I’m positive. To the day I die, no one can ever tell me that she walked into the hospital with it. Her vitals were perfect when she walked in. She looked beautiful. She was smiling, she was happy, she didn’t have a fever, nothing.

Chris says the hospital’s own records show Julie had a normal white blood count that morning. Medical experts the family consulted told him if Julie had an infection when she went in, her white blood count would have been above normal.

So what could have happened to Julie in the hospital? Could she have been infected from the hospital’s sheets, or when she received stitches after her delivery? Or could she have picked it from the many family members in her room that day?

Chris says it’s possible but doubts it. The family’s medical experts say the strep infection was most likely introduced directly into Julie’s spinal fluid during an epidural and traveled up her spinal cord to her brain.

Chris LeMoult: What I believe now is what happened during the first epidural procedure is that bacteria got on the needle and entered immediately into her spine.

Thompson: What you’re saying is somehow or another, during that epidural, the strep infection was basically main-lined to her brain?

Chris LeMoult: Exactly.

Thompson: Through her spinal fluid?

Chris LeMoult: Yeah.

That first epidural had to be removed by the anesthesiologist.

Chris and Julie’s family charge in a lawsuit her infection was the result of a “failure to maintain a sterile environment” by the hospital and the anesthesiologist. Chris recalls how busy the doctor was.

Chris LeMoult: In fact, he was touching his cell phone and touching his pager, turning it off, during the procedure.

Thompson: Did he wear a mask?

Chris LeMoult: No.

The family’s lawsuit also charges that Julie’s infection came from “the introduction of a needle into the patient’s spinal canal without use of sterile face masks.” But anesthesiologists say there is no clear, written standard as to whether they are required to wear a mask during an epidural.

Infectious disease specialists say it is often difficult to pin down exactly how an infection is passed along... but they do say the right antibiotic might stop it. Remember, Julie’s obstetrician did call in an antibiotic prescription for her that night.

Thompson: Was it ever given?

Chris LeMoult: No.

Thompson: She never even got an antibiotic?

Chris LeMoult: No, no one ever followed up to see if she had received it.  No one ever asked me, when she was having seizures, did she get the antibiotic. We just know in the notes she was prescribed an antibiotic and it was never given to her. 

That antibiotic, the family believes, might have saved Julie’s life. 

Bruce Ellis: Everything lined up wrong. We might have changed one thing in this scenario that she went through, maybe just one thing, she’d still be with us, probably having her second or third baby now.

In a written statement, Sibley Hospital says “words cannot express the sadness” at Julie’s death, and it offers “deepest sympathies” to the family. The hospital says:

“Julie LeMoult’s death was not the result of a hospital-acquired infection or illness nor any specific action or lack of action on the part of Sibley Hospital.”

The hospital says it “met the standard of care in every respect... including staffing.”

Sibley Hospital officials declined our request for an on-camera interview, but did meet with us.  They said they believe the findings of Julie’s autopsy support their view that she had some type of infection when she entered the hospital.  But they also acknowledge that no one can definitively say where or how this young mother was infected, or why she slipped away so quickly. The case of Julie LeMoult, they hospital said, is a “medical mystery.”

Sibley Hospital officials also told us in order to “reach a higher standard” of patient care, they are now requiring masks be worn by the doctor, and anyone in the room, while an epidural is being given. And they pointed out that just this year, the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation rated Sibley a “top tier” community hospital.

So whether Julie LeMoult died of a hospital-acquired infection and whether the hospital is responsible for that, is now for a court to decide.

But members of Julie’s family are not waiting for an outcome— they want to warn people about how dangerous hospital infections can be.

The dangers of hospital infections
It's a mission shared by Dr. Barry Farr of the University of Virginia medical center. Dr. Farr is not involved in Julie’s case, but he is alarmed about the spread of hospital infections.

Dr. Barry Farr, expert on hospital-acquired infections: We allow tons of it in our health care facilities.  Our nursing homes are riddled with it.  Our hospitals are many of ‘em full of it. 

He says what’s especially frightening is more and more of those deadly hospital bugs are growing resistant to antibiotics, and the health care industry is not doing enough to fight the problem.

Dr. Farr: The patients are paying the price. They’re paying it as increased health care bills because we have higher costs because of it.  And they also have a higher risk of dying from the infections.

In fact, the government’s Centers for Disease Control says one in every 20 patients—nearly 2 million people— will get an infection while they are in the hospital. An estimated 99,000, Americans will die this year from hospital acquired infections.

Betsey McCaughey, public health expert: These infections kill as may people in this country each year as AIDS, breast cancer, and auto accidents combined, and they’re largely preventable.

Public health expert Betsy McCaughey says there is a lot patients can do to protect themselves. McCaughey and her group, the Committee to ‘Reduce Infection Deaths’ (RID), has published a list of tips for patients things most of us would never think of.

McCaughey: For example, if you are going in for surgery and you know it ahead of time, buy chlorohexadine soap at the drug store and begin showering with it.

Thompson: Now why is that?

McCaughey: It will help remove dangerous bacteria from your own skin that could go into your surgical wound and cause a serious infection. Also tell the caregivers in the hospital not to shave you before surgery. Shaving creates small nicks in the skin through in which the Bacteria can enter.

And, she says, watch to make sure your doctors and nurses wash their hands and use gloves, masks and clean gowns.

Logan's future
Logan never did develop an infection, and today is a healthy little boy.

Fortunately, Chris does not have to raise him alone. Julie’s whole family is pitching in. Christianne Ellis, Julie’s younger sister, quit her job and has become Logan’s full time nanny.

Christianne Ellis, Julie's sister:  My sister meant the world to me, and I wanted to do her proud.

Christianne says every time she is with Logan she sees her sister.

Christianne Ellis: His smile just lights up a room like Julie’s did. 

Chris says not a day goes by he doesn’t wish he could go back and redo April 2^nd, 2003. But he can’t go back.

So he goes on, with Logan.

Chris LeMoult: I have to believe that she’s there watching over him, but I don’t get to see that, and Logan doesn’t get to see that. And he’ll never really realize all the things that I fell in love with Julie about. He’ll never really get to experience that. He’ll only see her smile in a picture. 

There is a national effort underway to try to get hospitals to report their infection rate. Seven states have now adopted legislation to require it, and 33 states have legislation pending. Click here to find out where your state stands.

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