By: Mack Mahoney
      Louisburg, NC

I see that "Dangerous Duke" is at it again! In February of this year, a Duke surgeon made a tragic “mistake” when he transplanted type “A” organs into 17 year old, Jesica Santillan’s type “O” body. As a result of this so called 'fluke', Jesica died two weeks later after a second heart & lung transplant failed to work.

Now we are told that a two day old baby was "accidentally" set on fire during another 'Duke fluke'. This time it was a failed medical procedure which was supposed to have helped the child breath easier. Somehow the procedure went wrong and the result was another child being seriously injured during a 'Duke fluke'! The incident occurred at 1:PM on Monday, June 2nd in Duke’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). Coincidentally, as in Jesica’s case, the fact that the infant was severely “burned”, suffering 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns was not reported to authorities until two days later.

Now, one might ask! Where does this madness end? What is it going to take to stop the gross incompetence and failure to follow proper medical procedures at Duke Hospital? In response to this latest 'Duke fluke', Duke Hospital CEO, Dr. William Fulkerson used the same 'lame' excuse that he used following the Jesica Santillan tragedy. He said, “If there’s something to learn from this, we’ll learn it, and we’ll teach everybody else, too.” It's like, “Oops! We burned up a baby today! Now we can learn from the tragedy then go forth and teach others how ‘not to do’ the same thing”. The real problem here is, Duke's continued failure to follow procedure?

Mack Mahoney, President,
Jesica’s Hope Chest, Inc.
(a foundation for critically ill children)
Web-site (www.4JHC.org)