VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) -- The family of a late Hammond woman injured in a 1995 operating room flash fire has been awarded $750,000 in damages.
After two days of deliberations, a Porter County jury on Friday ordered Dr. Thomas Kalmbach to pay that sum to the family of Margaret Frostick, who died in 1998.
Jurors, however, found no fault with Porter Memorial Hospital or the anesthesiologist who assisted in the Jan. 24, 1995, surgery Frostick had to clear a severely blocked artery in her neck.
During the procedure, a ball of fire erupted around Frostick's face when a sparking tool Kalmbach was using to cauterize her skin ignited oxygen leaking from her oxygen mask.
Frostick spent two months in Porter Memorial Hospital following the fire, which left her with facial burns. She later received a $128,000 hospital bill for the operation and extended stay.
Frostick's son, Bruce Frostick, said the family may not have sued if the hospital and doctors had admitted they were at fault and covered the resulting medical bills.
``She only sued because the hospital denied what happened and she wanted other people to know,'' he told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.
Tom Clements, an attorney for Frostick's family, said the fire destroyed the last 3 years of Frostick's life. ``A fire doesn't occur during a surgery unless someone was careless,'' he said.
Defense attorneys disagreed, pointing to a three-doctor panel that found no one involved in the operation was negligent.
Kalmbach's attorney, Todd Woelfer, said no evidence was presented showing he did anything wrong.
``Dr. Kalmbach did everything his training taught him to do,'' Woelfer said. ``They did everything by the book, and despite that, a very freak event happened.''
