37-year-old's death after surgery probed
The state Department of Public Health is investigating the death of a 37-year-old man who underwent obesity surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center last week and suffered a cardiac arrest immediately after the operation, state officials and his family said.
Howard Reid of Dorchester had tried for many years to lose weight, but found it difficult. He didn't have any immediate health problems aside from sleep apnea, his family said, but he was worried about developing diabetes and remaining healthy, especially for his 5-year-old son. So Reid, who weighed about 350 lbs., enrolled in a yearlong program at the hospital involving nutrition counseling and patient support groups to prepare for surgery.
A health department spokeswoman said the agency is investigating the circumstances, including whether the hospital made mistakes that contributed to his death.
Dr. Michael Epstein, Beth Israel Deaconess's chief operating officer, said the hospital is conducting an internal investigation but declined to comment about the case.
Last fall, patients died after gastric bypass surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence. One in every 100 to 300 patients die from complications from obesity surgery, and another 10 to 20 percent experience surgery-related medical problems. But the number of patients undergoing some type of bariatric surgery has skyrocketed -- to 103,200 last year from 23,100 in 1997 -- meaning more patients are experiencing complications and placing far greater focus on the risks of a surgery that many obese people turn to in desperation.
Last Tuesday, Dr. Daniel Jones performed reversible Lap-Band surgery on Reid, during which the surgeon places a silicone band around the patient's stomach to restrict the amount of food he can eat, Reid's family said. Jones did the operation laparoscopically, guiding pencil-thin tools and video cameras through tiny incisions.
But something went wrong right after the surgery, and Reid pulled the anesthesia mask off of his face and went into cardiac arrest, doctors told his wife, Yolanda Mason-Reid. Jones told Mason-Reid that the surgery itself was successful. Doctors put Reid on life support; he died Thursday. Mason-Reid said her husband's death certificate said he died of cardiac and respiratory arrest. Jones could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"I want to know what went wrong," Mason-Reid said. "How can you tell me the operation was successful if Howard's not here with me?"
Reid, who was driven to improve his family's life and move up at work, earned a living as a computer support technician at Symantec in Waltham and as a part-time security guard at Harvard University. He was cofounder and vice president of the Harvard security guard's union.
The Reids have a 5-year-old son, and three children from Mason-Reid's previous marriage lived with them.
Liz Kowalczyk can be reached at kowalczyk@globe.com.
