Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Talking to the Rainy Day mother on the phone at the weekend, I was. "Isn't it awful about that poor woman in America," said I, meaning Terri Schiavo, and preparing for a discussion on ethics and morals. "Oh, a fright entirely," replied the mother. "And she with two young children and all."

HERE, I paused, because I was pretty sure that Terri Schiavo didn't have any kids. "What children?" I asked, thinking that I might have missed out on something. "She had two sons," went on the mother, "Sure, Marie [a neighbour] knows the husband." At this point I felt that something was awry. Although our neighbour is well travelled, she has never been to Pinellas Park, Florida. So, here's the horrifying story that unravelled:

Earlier this year, Kay Kelly Cregan, 42, from Croom, County Limerick, e-mailed a Manhattan plastic surgeon, Dr Michael Sachs, regarding a nose job and face-lift. She had read about him a local newspaper. "I believe when you meet me that you will think me suitable for that procedure (I am 42 years old but look 56-58 approx)," she wrote. "I have become very self-conscious when meeting people and [I am] becoming more and more anti-social by the day." Surgery was scheduled for mid-March, to be followed by two weeks of recovery in an apartment provided by Sachs. The package was to cost $32,000.

WHAT Kay Kelly Cregan didn't know, and what the article didn't mention, is that Dr Sachs is one of the most sued doctors in New York. According to the New York Daily News, the National Practitioner Data Bank public file shows that he has made 33 malpractice payments during the past decade, more than any other doctor in New York. As well, there are two malpractice suits pending against him alleging breathing difficulties arising from botched nose jobs. On top of this, New York state health officials, citing negligence, last year banned Sachs from ever performing complex nasal procedures without the supervision of another doctor.

Medical records show that on Monday, 14 March, Kay Kelly Cregan was anesthetized in Sachs' Central Park South office at 6 pm. The operation lasted 2 hours, 55 minutes. When it was over, the time was 9.15 pm, and Cregan was taken to a recovery room in Sachs' office. A nurse checked her every hour and reported that at 6.30 am on the following morning Cregan said she felt dizzy. The nurse wrote:

"I assisted her to lay on the floor because I don't want her to hit her head somewhere. Because she's heavy, I put her on the floor and connected [her] to the monitor."

CREGAN'S blood pressure and pulse were falling. "Started CPR after a minute, I called 911," the nurse's last note reads. At 6.37 am, a call from Sachs' office about a patient in cardiac arrest was registered at the 911 switchboard. When Cregan arrived in an ambulance at the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room at 7:06 am, she was brain-dead. Doctors took her off life support on Thursday 17 March, St Patrick's Day.

In light of the controversy surrounding the Schiavo case, one of the most interesting things about this tragic story is that most US news reports contain the phrases "She was taken off life support" or "her life support machine was switched off". No debate. No protests. By the way, Ireland's Examiner uses the neutral formulation "died in St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital". The same newspaper was prurient enough, though, to write, "Without telling her family, she went to New York for the nose job and facelift."

FINALLY, as the New York Daily News commented: "One element compounding the tragedy of Kay Kelly Cregan, the Irish mother of two who died after a nose job, wasn't mentioned in the story, but is plain to anyone who looked at the 42-year-old woman's picture: Her nose was fine. She might not have been the prettiest of women, but she didn't need a nose job."