Florida 2-year-old died of massive heart attack after doctor’s error gives him 10x the healthy dose of potassium: suit

 A 2-year-old boy died in a Florida hospital after a doctor negligently deleted a decimal point in his prescription, resulting in the underweight toddler receiving 10 times the dosage of medicine he should have, a lawsuit alleges.

De’Markus Page “tragically overdosed with potassium” on March 3, 2024, causing him to suffer a massive brain injury and forcing him to spend the next two weeks enduring “a horrific and protracted hospital course” on a ventilator before finally being taken off of life support, according to a lawsuit filed by his mother last week.

Mom Dominique Page is suing University of Florida Health and its Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics, as well as the medical staff she claims “fumbled” his treatment, including taking 20 minutes to intubate him after he went into cardiac arrest, the Alachua County Circuit Court lawsuit alleges.

De’Markus Page, 2, died in a Florida hospital after he overdosed from potassium that was prescribed to him at 10 times the dose it should have been, according to a lawsuit by his mom. J Brown Funeral and Cremation Services

De’Markus — who “was suspected of having some level of autism” and was a picky eater — first landed in AdventHealth Ocala Hospital on March 1, 2024 with a virus and dangerously low levels of potassium, Law & Crime first reported, citing the suit.

He was given intravenous fluids to help with his low electrolyte levels and the next morning transferred to Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics in Gainsville, Fla. “in order to receive the higher level of care he required,” the suit claims.

Shands medical staff found De’Markus weighed just 21 pounds — or the 30th percentile of weight for his demographic — and he still had low levels of potassium, the court papers explain.

So the boy was given “electrolyte replacement therapy,” but the next day Dr. Jiabi Chen “unconscionably” ordered the boy be given “10 times the level ordered the previous day,” which had “been calculated based on his size, weight, and that day’s lab results,” the filing alleges.

Chen “errantly” ordered the extremely high dosage, “deleting a critical decimal point in the prior day’s dosage of 1.5 mmol — now ordering the liquid supplement to be given at 15 mmol twice a day,” the suit claims.

This, on top of the two other forms of potassium De’Markus was already receiving through IV and Pedialyte, the filing charges.

No one else on the medical team, nor the pharmacists, caught the error “despite a Red Flag warning in the hospital’s pharmacy system that alerted them to the excessive dosage,” the court documents claim.

De’Markus Page was brought to the University of Florida Health, Shands Children Hospital where medical staff botched his treatment, according to a suit. Google Maps

So the toddler received two of the excessive dosages, the last being administered at 8:28 p.m. on March 3, 2024, the suit alleges. And by 9:02 p.m., he went into cardiac arrest caused by the overdose — or hyperkalemic cardiac arrest, the suit alleges.

But the staff bungled their response and carried out “2 to 3 botched attempts” to intubate De’Markus, the court documents claim. And “there was at least twenty minutes that had passed since the Code [Blue] was called, during which time he remained severely deprived of the oxygen necessary to sustain life,” the suit alleges.

De’Markus’ heart eventually spontaneously come back, “but the anoxic damage already done to his brain and other vital organs was catastrophic,” the suit says.

When his blood was drawn they found elevated potassium and phosphate, the filing claims.

De’Markus was kept alive for the next two weeks while enduring seizures and battling “myriad of ICU-related complications,” before he was taken off of life support on March 18, 2024, the filing charges.

Dominique — of Marion County, Fla. — is suing Shands and University of Florida for at least $50,000 under wrongful death claims and related claims for the pain her son suffered and for her loss of “companionship of her minor child and for mental pain and suffering,” she endured.

The Page family lawyer, Jordan Dulcie, called the hospital and its doctors’ actions “grossly negligent” and said they “failed the basic standards of medical care.”

“No parent should have to lose a child like this,” the lawyer continued. “What the family has endured is unimaginable and the worst part is that it was entirely preventable.”

The lawyer said he hopes to bring the case to trial to prevent another family from having to go through what Dominique went through.

The hospital declined to comment on the case but said: “UF Health is committed to protecting the privacy of all patients and their families and follows all state and federal HIPAA regulations. We cannot release information on patients or possible patients and their treatment without consent.”

Chen didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.