GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WKRC) - A 2-year-old was allegedly unintentionally killed by doctors at a hospital after a "critical decimal point" was deleted, leading to the child receiving 10 times as much medicine as intended.
According to a lawsuit filed by the child's family, 2-year-old De'Markus Page was brought to UF Health Shands Children's Hospital, a teaching hospital for the University of Florida, in March of 2024 for a virus.
A legal complaint obtained by Law&Crime described the child as active but with minor speech and developmental issues and was "suspected of having some level of autism."
"He remained underweight in the 30th percentile for his age due to his being a picky eater," Page's family reportedly said. "His nutritional challenges made De'Markus far more vulnerable to incurring fluid and electrolyte deficits should he contract the normal viruses and illness of early childhood that impact a child's oral intake."
Page was supposed to receive "1.5 mmol" of potassium phosphate twice per day, according to the complaint, but on his second day in the hospital a doctor allegedly "unconscionably entered an incorrect order for De'Markus' oral potassium phosphate medication to be given at a dosage 10 times the level ordered the previous day."
Not only did the deletion of "a critical decimal point" increase the dosage by 10 times, but De'Markus' potassium levels had reportedly already returned to baseline the morning the error was made, which the lawsuit claimed the doctor "failed to recognize or blatantly ignored."
The error was not caught by any staff members, and quickly Page started experiencing the consequences of the alleged mistake. The child went into a "hyperkalemic state and suffering hyperkalemic cardiac arrest," which allegedly went unnoticed by hospital staff for "at least 20 minutes."
Once doctors did notice, they struggled to establish an airway for him to breathe, failing at least two or three times, the lawsuit claimed.
"De'Markus was reported to have a spontaneous return of circulation and cardiac activity, but the anoxic damage already done to his brain and other vital organs was catastrophic," the complaint said. "Unfortunately, having sustained the massive anoxic damage De'Markus went on to endure a horrific and protracted hospital course over the next two weeks as a neurologically obtunded, ventilator-dependent patient in the pediatric intensive care unit."
Just two weeks after being sent to the hospital to treat his virus, Page succumbed to his injuries and passed away.
"What this family has endured is unimaginable and the worst part is that it was entirely preventable," the family's attorney, Jordan Dulcie, told Law&Crime. "I'm committed to holding the University of Florida Shands Children's Hospital fully accountable and presenting this case to a jury to avoid this tremendous grief from happening to another family."