Police have arrested the plastic surgeon and anesthetist involved in the death of 18-year-old Emmalyn Nguyen and charged both of the men with serious crimes.
Surgeon Geoffrey Kim and nurse anesthetist Rex Meeker both turned themselves in to the Sheriff’s Department in Arapahoe County, Colorado after warrants were issued for their arrest on February 16.
On August 1, 2019, Nguyen came to see Kim at Colorado Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery for a breast augmentation appointment. According to authorities, Nguyen went into cardiac arrest after she was administered anesthesia and despite the staff’s unsuccessful attempts at CPR and seeing her turn blue, they reportedly waited over five hours before calling an ambulance.
Nguyen went into a coma after the surgery and tragically died after spending 14 months in a vegetative state on October 4, 2020. Both Kim and Meeker settled a lawsuit the family filed against them by agreeing to pay $1 million each in damages.
Kim has been charged with first-degree aggravated assault and criminally negligent homicide. Meeker has been charged with manslaughter. An arrest affidavit gives more disturbing details that authorities uncovered around the case.
A nurse interviewed by the Sheriff’s Office claimed Kim “would not initially agree” to staff members’ repeated requests to call 911 for Nguyen. Another part of the report says Nguyen was given nine doses of anesthetic reversal agents in a one-hour period. These included drugs like Narcan, which is not supposed to be used more than once according to experts.
Nguyen’s mother, Lynn Fam, told police that Kim did not inform her when her daughter became unresponsive, and she arrived at the surgery center at 4 p.m. expecting it to be complete. Once there Kim reportedly downplayed Nguyen’s condition repeatedly but staff eventually told Fam the procedure was never performed. Kim made the call to contact 911 more than three hours later.
An ER doctor interviewed by authorities also questioned Kim’s behavior while advising him after Nguyen was transferred. Kim apparently told hospital staff that she was “directly” transferred to the hospital after going into cardiac arrest when in reality she had been unconscious for over four hours. The doctor said he wasn’t sure that Kim deliberately misled him, but it “seemed like it had to have been deliberate.”
Kim and Meeker have both since been released on bond, but they will face significant prison sentences if convicted of all their charges.
