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Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly appeared in a segment on “60 minutes” last night about the medical error that almost killed their infant twins. 60 Minutes had an excellent report on the failure of the hospital, Cedars Sinai, and Baxter Medical, which manufactures the drug Heparin.

A preventable error
Dennis and Kimberly’s twins were born by surrogate on November 8, 2007 using Kimberly’s eggs and Dennis’ sperm, a choice the couple made after Kimberly suffered five miscarriages. At 12 days, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace were brought to the hospital with possible staph infections. They were almost killed when they were mistakenly given 10,000 units of Heparin, a blood thinner used to flush out IV lines, two separate times. The twins were supposed to be given just 10 units. The packaging for the vials that contain the 10 and 10,000 units of Heparin are hard to tell apart as both are colored in shades of blue and have small writing.

A Mother’s premonition
Kimberly said she had a mother’s premonition at 9:00 pm the night of the error that something was wrong, and she even wrote it down and the note was shown on 60 Minutes. She said “I just had this horrible feeling come over me, and I felt like the babies were passing. I just had this feeling of dread.”

They then called the hospital and were told that everything was fine, even though the nurses had realized that the babies were in danger around that time. It wasn’t until the next morning that the Quaids learned what happened when they went to visit their twins. They were met at the hospital room by a nurse, their pediatrician and a representative from risk management, which protects the hospital’s legal interests.

Four months later, the babies are fine
The twins are now living at home at four months old and are fine and have passed all medical tests, but it was touch and go for a while. They had to be kept in the hospital for over a month afterwards. Quaid said that when he visited them the next day he saw blood squirt from his son’s belly button 6 feet across the room and onto the wall. He says that he’s grateful for every day now and doesn’t take a day for granted. He said “If they hadn’t made it, there never would have been another happy day.”

Dennis Quaid’s quest
After Quaid’s ordeal, he started researching preventable medical errors to try and make sense of what happened. Quaid said that 100,000 people are killed every year in hospitals due to medical mistakes, and that “it’s bigger than AIDS… breast cancer… and automobile accidents” but that “no one seems to really be aware of the problem.”

The twin’s pediatrician was the first one to tell Quaid that three babies had died in Indiana from the same mistaken dosage of blood thinner that nearly killed his newborn twins. Quaid said it sent a chill down his spine.

Drugs were not recalled
Baxter International, the company that manufactures Heparin, did repackage the adult dose of Heparin with a bright red label after the incident in Indiana, but they failed to recall the existing stocks of the drug, some of which were given to the Quaid twins. The Quaids are now suing Baxter for not recalling the drug.

60 Minutes interviewed a representative from Baxter, who said they were not at fault for not recalling the drug because it was safe and that human error was to blame. A representative for Cedars Sinai acknowledged that the twins’ overdose was the result of a preventable error.

All stocks of Heparin have since been recalled, but it has nothing to do with the confusing labels. There was “possible contamination at a Chinese manufacturing facility that may have contributed to at least 19 deaths.”

Here is a clip of the part of the interview where the babies are shown, along with the full interview in two parts. Thanks to Redlasso.

Highlight of the babies:

Part 1 of Dennis and Kimberly Quaid on 60 Minutes

Part 2 of Dennis and Kimberly Quaid on 60 Minutes