Thirty-nine-year-old Maria Garcia of Garden Grove went to Hills Surgical Institute in Anaheim Hills on March 13, 2008, for liposuction, vaginal reconstruction
and a “Brazilian butt lift,” with plans to return two weeks later for a
tummy tuck and breast augmentation. Garcia never made that second appointment as she bled to death from a puncture
wound. The state medical board disciplined the surgeon, and now the nursing board is probing a nurse anesthetist at the troubled facility.
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See also:
Anaheim Hills Cosmetic Surgery Center Comes Under an Unfriendly Light
Dr. Lawrence Hansen, 85, Agrees to Probation to Settle Vaginal-Reconstruction Death Case
Dr. Mark A. Knight, Anaheim Hills Plastic Surgeon Accused of Sexy Time With Patients and Botched Surgeries, Surrenders His Medical License
Garcia's family sued the office that a friend recommended, and court documents contended she did not know the place only opened three months earlier, that one of her doctors
was under
investigation by the California Medical Board, that the facility failed
to meet the
state's requirements for surgical centers that use general anesthesia,
that it was not state-licensed, Medicare-certified or privately
accredited.
Last year, the California Medical Board (CMA) placed Dr. Lawrence Hansen of Cypress on 35 months of probation because of Garcia's death. The board found Hansen came out of retirement to perform vaginal surgery
he had not done in five years, and that he failed to verify the center was accredited as required
under state law. An 85-year-old at the time of the CMA enforcement, his inability to perform competently due to his advanced age was also cited.
Hansen first popped up on the Weekly's radar in a report about the outpatient center's medical director surrendering his license to practice. Dr. Mark A. Knight, who had taken over the Anaheim Hills practice from another doctor who had surrendered his license in 2010 amid accusations he botched surgeries and had sex with a tummy-tuck patient while her husband and children were in the waiting room.
Besides Knight and Hansen, several Hills Surgical doctors surrendered
their licenses or were barred from practicing between 2009-2011 for
a sexual assault, other botched surgeries, controlled substances being prescribed as
painkillers, medications being illegally purchased and sold and procedures performed on patients who did not ask for them.
Now, the state nursing board is going after Gustavo Gutierrez, the nurse anesthetist who worked on Garcia and was part owner of Hills Surgical Institute. It was Gutierrez who hired Hansen to perform the procedures, according to the board, which accuses Gutierrez of gross negligence and incompetence, including leaving Garcia alone on
the operating table for half an hour.
Gutierrez denies he was at fault or that he left Garcia alone that long, according to an Orange County Register report.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.