Patient S. tells from her hospital bed how she was locked in a room against her will for four hours while a raging infection nearly took her life.
Wichita, KS – A life-threatening abortion complication landed a patient of late-term abortionist George R. Tiller in the hospital last Thursday. The woman has come forward to tell of her harrowing, near-death experience at Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services.
Patient S. has alleged that on Tuesday, September 23, abortionist Shelley Sella may have botched an injection into her abdomen, causing sepsis, a systemic infection that rapidly spreads throughout the body and can cause rapid death.
She also accuses Sella of misdiagnosing her pregnancy at 19 weeks, even though previous medical examinations placed her pregnancy at 23 weeks, beyond the legal limit in Kansas.
On Thursday, while sick, crying, and running a fever of 103.7°, she returned to WHCS where she was isolated in a locked room for four hours, during which time her pleas for release were ignored.
Patient S. was told that she should be quiet because she was upsetting the other women, and was threatened that unless her attitude changed, they would no longer treat her. She was also told that she would have to drive over three hours to a hospital in Kansas City where her abortion would be completed. She refused to make the trip and demanded that Tiller finish the procedure.
Patient S. observed that she continued to feel movements in her womb. Her mother was present during the removal of the baby, and observed Tiller inserting a tube into the baby’s skull and removing the brains, a procedure that is illegal if the baby was still alive.
Before the final procedure, Patient S. said that she feared, “They’re liable to kill me under sedation.” During the procedure, Patient S. suffered an asthma attack and cardiac arrest, but was revived.
Instead of calling an ambulance, Tiller drove Patient S. to Wesley Medical Center in his personal Jeep. She feared for her safety since Tiller apparently could not see very clearly, and was verbally directed though traffic by a female employee who was with them.
She was treated and discharged from the hospital on Saturday, September 27, 2008, even though she was still in pain and feeling sick from her ordeal.
Patient S.’s experience closely resembles that of 19-year old Christin Gilbert, who died from untreated sepsis during a third-trimester abortion at WHCS on January 13, 2005.
“We have repeatedly begged the authorities in Kansas to hold Tiller accountable for the many women he had hurt just over the past few years. How many women must be maimed or killed before Tiller is brought to justice? We say it again: Tiller is a menace and we demand that he be held accountable for his dangerous, if not criminal, actions. This time, the public should not take ‘no’ for an answer,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
Read a complete account of Patient S.’s ordeal
