An anesthesiology expert testified in state court Monday that the combination of sedatives that were given to 3-year-old Finley Boyle before undergoing a dental procedure was so strong that an anesthesiologist should have been constantly monitoring her.
When Boyle went into cardiac arrest Dec. 3, 2013, at Island Dentistry for Children in Kailua, only dentist Lilly Geyer and her two dental assistants, one of whom was also the receptionist, were attending.
Boyle never regained consciousness and died Jan. 4, 2014, due to complications following the cardiac arrest. Her mother took her to the dentist for some root canals.
Geyer, 41, is on trial for manslaughter for recklessly causing Boyle’s death and for recklessly failing to get medical help after Boyle stopped breathing.
Island Dentistry recorded that Boyle was given a cocktail of meperedine, known by the brand name Demerol, hydroxyzine and chlorol hydrate.
Dr. Gildasio De Oliveira, chief of anesthesiology at Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital-Lifespan Program, said he doesn’t have a problem with the dosages Island Dentistry reported giving Boyle to moderately sedate her, if she was given only one drug. He said giving a patient all three drugs at the same time boosts each of the drugs’ strengths.
“What I expect to see in a patient who receives all of those drugs would be decreased respiratory drive, which means they would start breathing slowly or they could stop breathing,” De Oliveira said.
He said combining the three drugs turned what was intended to be moderate sedation into deep sedation and even general anesthesia, requiring the constant monitoring of an anesthesiologist.
The state is paying De Oliveira $500 per hour for his expert testimony.
Under questioning from one of Geyer’s lawyers, De Oliveira said he is board-certified for anesthesia but not for pediatric anesthesia. And while he said he is familiar with all of the credible studies on anesthesia, he was not familiar with some of the anesthesia studies by pediatric dentists shown to him by Geyer’s lawyer and dismissed some as not credible.
Correction: An earlier version of this story listed the wrong years for when Finley Boyle went into cardiac arrest and died.
