Doctor Had Been Sued For Malpractice Before

Rocky Mountain News
June 28, 2002
Section: City Desk/Local Edition, Page Number: 4A
By Bill Scanlon

An Arapahoe County jury Thursday awarded an immigrant Vietnamese family $1.3 million in a medical malpractice case against a surgeon who operated on Be Luong, a 54-year-old mother of five. " What we really wanted was to make sure that this never happened to another person,'' said Dr. Dzuy Nguyen, one of the three children of Be Luong who became dentists. "The medical community is so protective of each other, and I'm part of it. But we felt so strongly about this not happening to anyone else that we knew something had to be done.''

Dr. Karl Stecher, a spinal surgeon, was performing routine surgery for Luong's back at the Medical Center of Aurora on Sept. 9, 2000, when, the family contends, he nicked the cartoid artery. They say he admitted as much to them, but then covered up the mistake in official medical records. Stecher said he did nothing wrong, that he was removing scar tissue on the other side of the neck when the bleeding began.

Luong lost a massive amount of blood, which clotted and clogged the arteries leading to the brain. She died two days later. The family's lawyer, Jim Chalat, said Stecher "committed malpractice, admitted it, then later tried to deny it and refused to take responsibility for it.''

"This physician refused to stand up and take any responsibility whatsoever for his actions.''

Arapahoe County Coroner Dr. Michael Doberson determined Luong's injury was caused by an instrument, most likely the sharp instrument used by the surgeon. Stecher's attorney Ernie Johnson said his client is an honest person and a good surgeon but that "surgeries never are performed perfectly.''

"Karl was very upset about the woman's death—she was a good friend of Karl's—and today (he) was very upset that his explanations weren't acceptable to the jury. He was probably the only person in a position to know exactly what happened.''

Stecher's license hasn't been affected by the trial, but the Board of Medical Examiners could take a look at the findings. "He's going to be back on his feet practicing medicine shortly,'' Johnson said.

Denver attorney Jack Olson said he has a case set for trial in December against Stecher. His client, Railene Sanner, went in for a similar procedure. "He did the same thing to her cartoid artery. She nearly died,'' he said.

In 1998, Stecher won a malpractice suit filed by a woman who claimed he performed two unnecessary surgeries and in one of them damaged nerves that caused her to lose control of her bladder and bowels.