Jury Awards $20.5 Million to Family of Teenager Who Died after Fatal Liposuction

In the spotlight

Beasley News Service

May 24, 2008

On May 23, 2001, Amy Marie Fledderman, an 18-year-old freshman at Penn State, underwent liposuction in the King of Prussia office of Dr. Richard P. Glunk.

The plastic surgeon told the teenager he would remove excess fat from her neck and abdomen, and that she would be as safe as if the elective procedure was done in a hospital.

Instead, according to expert testimony, Dr. Glunk nicked a blood vessel in Amy Fledderman's neck. She died two days later of a fat embolism, at Montgomery Hospital in Norristown.

On May 23, 2008, exactly seven years after Amy Fledderman's fatal liposuction, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury returned a $20.5 million verdict against Dr. Glunk, and Edward DeStefano, a nurse anesthetist.

The jury award included $15 million in punitive damages against Dr. Glunk, $3.5 million for what the 18-year-old would have earned in her lifetime, and $2 million for emotional distress inflicted upon Colleen Fledderman, Amy’s mother.

Colleen Fledderman testified during the five-week trial that for more than two hours after her daughter's procedure, she had begged and pleaded with the doctor to call an ambulance for her daughter. Amy Fledderman was bleeding and in distress by 1:30 p.m. on May 23, 2001, according to testimony.

Dr. Glunk, however, did not call an ambulance to his office until 4:11 p.m., and when he did, he told the 911 operators to have the ambulance show up with no lights and no siren. By that time, according to testimony, Amy Fledderman was glassy-eyed, gasping for breath, and had a neck bulging with blood. Her skin was white; her lips were turning blue.

As the jury read its verdict, Colleen Fledderman, a special education teacher from Newtown Square, Delaware County, bowed her head and wept; her husband, Daniel, an electrical engineer, wiped his eyes.

"We don’t want this to happen to another family," Colleen Fledderman told Cahn after the verdict. "Seven years ago today my daughter was in surgery and Dr. Glunk started the process of ending her life. It’s just a really hard day for us."

Asked by Cahn if she had any message for Dr. Cahn, Colleen Fledderman said, "You had no right to do it. You could have saved her life and you chose not to. We’ll never understand it to our dying breath."

Dr. Glunk listened intently as the jury read its verdict, then he bolted from the courtroom, striding briskly past waiting photographers and reporters. The plastic surgeon subsequently told the Philadelphia Daily News that he would appeal the case, which was under a gag order imposed by a judge because of pre-trial publicity.

"It's a tragedy, and it'll tear me apart for the rest of my life," the plastic surgeon told William Bender of the Daily News.

So Amy Fledderman told her mother that she wanted to go back to see Dr. Glunk and get rid of the the fat around her midsection.

Colleen Fledderman, who teaches severely disabled children, testified that her daughter was concerned about "this one roll under her stomach and this little part under her chin." Amy Fledderman had asked Dr. Glunk if she could rid of this weight by dieting and exercise, Colleen Fledderman testified, but that Dr. Glunk had told her " 'Absolutely not, that is what's called genetic fat. And the only way to remove it, that she could ever get rid of it, would be to have liposuction.'"

In his opening statement, Dean F. Murtagh, representing Dr. Glunk, told the jury that there was "no violation or deviation from the standard of care on the part of Dr. Glunk while he was managing Amy Fledderman, nor did his conduct in any way cause her harm."

Murtagh told the jury that Amy Fledderman died of an "unwanted complication: fat embolism. A very nice young lady has passed away."

"This is a very sad and tragic case," echoed I. Steven Levy, the lawyer for DeStefano. "A beautiful 18-yearold girl died from liposuction surgery." Levy conceded that DeStefano "got upset and turned off the monitor with the vital statistics because he was upset."

"He did not do a perfect job," Levy told the jury.

"She died of a fat embolism, which is an unfortunate and unpredictable complication," the doctor responded. "I don’t know if that in any way makes me responsible."

Dr. Glunk: "I’m not at fault, no."

Dr. Glunk: "I’m 100 percent blameless, that’s correct."

The jury, however, decided that Dr. Glunk deserved 75 of the blame for what happened to Amy Fledderman, and that DeStefano deserved the other 25 percent.

The 10 a.m. liposuction procedure was over by 1:30 p.m. on May 23, 2001, Colleen Fledderman testified, but she did not get to see her daughter until about 3:30 p.m. Dr. Glunk had said that Amy was having a "rough emergence" from anesthesia, Colleen Fledderman testified, and that they couldn't wake Amy up.

Colleen Fledderman testified that she had repeatedly asked to see her daughter, and repeatedly requested that Dr. Glunk summon an ambulance. The doctor, however, she testified, kept denying her requests, and telling her to calm down, that she was getting hysterical.

"And he said to me, 'Well, I reallly can't justify an ambulance, Colleen,' " she testified, " I'm running a business here . . . . And if I call an ambulance and they take her to the emergency ward, they are just going to send her home. They don't admit patients for rough emergence.' "

When she finally did get it to see her daughter, Colleen Fledderman was devastated. "When I looked at her, something in my brain snapped," Colleen Fledderman testified. "I knew she was going to die. I knew it. I looked at her. . . . My knees were rubbery, and I was shaking. . . . She was all glassy eyed . . . . She was just like staring straight up at the ceiling."

Colleen Fledderman said she told Dr. Glunk, "How could you leave her here so long? What kind of person are you? She's just a kid. Why didn't you call an ambulance?" "And he said, 'We're going to call an ambulance. We're going to do what you want.' "

When he finally called the ambulance, at about 4:11 p.m., "I heard Dr. Glunk telling someone, 'No lights and sirens, no lights and sirens for Amy,' " Colleen Fledderman testified, before breaking down on the witness stand.

At the hospital, "Amy had a tube down her throat and she was crying and she was really scared," Colleen Fledderman testified. "And she was mouthing around the tube, 'I'm scared, Mom. I'm sorry. I want to go home. I really hurt and I'm really scared.' "

As part of the $20 million verdict, the jury also awarded to the Fleddermans $5,000 that the family had paid for the liposuction procedure, a fee never refunded by the doctor.

The $15 million in punitive damages awarded by the jury was a record for a medical malpractice case in Pennsylvania, as well as the fourth highest punitive damages award in the nation for a medical malpractice case.

In a 2006 complaint, the Board of Professional and Occupational Affairs cited Amy Fledderman's case as well as two others. A man went into sepsis after Dr. Glunk allegedly perforated his intestines; a woman was hospitalized after a liposuction procedure that Dr. Glunk performed two days before he operated on Amy Fledderman. In the other two cases cited by the state, both patients survived, and lawsuits were settled out of court for substantial sums.