Doctor Accused Of Hastening Boy's Death For Organ Harvesting

LOS ANGELES, CA — Four years after they lost their 8-year-old son in a tragic drowning accident, a Los Angeles County couple has learned that the anesthesiologist who treated him at the hospital stands accused of administering a fatal dose of opioids to hasten their son’s death and preserve his organs for transplant.

Dr. Judith Brill, a prominent anesthesiologist at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, has not been charged with a crime. However, Los Angeles detectives have taken the rare step of opening a criminal investigation to determine if she administered a fatal dose of opioids to hasten a little boy's death, according to the Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles police and the L.A. County District Attorney's Office opened the investigation this year into the 2013 death of Cole Hartman after a coroner’s investigator campaigned to open the case.

In an ongoing whistleblower’s lawsuit filed last month, Denise Bertone, a veteran coroner’s investigator specializing in child deaths, claims she was retaliated against professionally for her dogged persistence in the case. Bertone had campaigned for years to have Cole’s cause of death changed to toxicity stemming from a lethal dose of the opioid fentanyl.

A Tragic Accident

By the time Cole arrived at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, he was in grave condition, having gone into cardiac arrest after nearly drowning in a washing machine at his Castaic home, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday morning.

Physicians at UCLA’s pediatric intensive care unit told Cole’s family that the child was not brain dead but "would never recover normal neuro function and … could never awaken," according to an entry in his medical chart.

The Hartmans decided to take Cole off life support and donate his organs. He was removed from the ventilator and, 23 minutes later with his family at his bedside, pronounced dead by an anesthesiologist.

The seemingly peaceful death four years ago is now haunting Cole’s loved ones and the doctors who treated him. Homicide detectives are looking into the allegations that the anesthesiologist gave Cole a fatal dose of the opioid fentanyl, but no charges have been brought.

An Unusual Case

A lawyer for Brill said the allegation was "factually wrong and patently offensive." Brill’s "only concern was to assure that this child, who had drowned and was never going to recover, would not suffer any pain following the removal of life support," attorney Mark Werksman wrote in an email to The Times.

The probe is one of only a handful of known criminal investigations into a doctor’s role in an organ donation.

"As you can imagine, this is very complicated," LAPD Capt. William Hayes, who oversees the elite Robbery-Homicide Division, which is conducting the investigation, told The Times. "We need to clearly understand what was done and the implications of those actions."

Detectives opened the case earlier this year. Bertone, a veteran coroner's investigator who specializes in child deaths, first flagged the use of fentanyl at the time of Cole’s 2013 autopsy and campaigned for years to persuade supervisors to reexamine the case, The Times reported. Her efforts resulted in the coroner's office amending Cole's death certificate in December to add fentanyl toxicity as a "significant cause" of his death.

For the full Los Angeles Times story click here.