California Mom Sues After Getting C-Section Without Anesthesia

OCEANSIDE, CA -- An Oceanside hospital faced a $5.75 million lawsuit Saturday after a woman said she underwent a caesarean section without anesthesia because the anesthesiologist did not respond to pages. A lawsuit filed by Delfina Mota stated she was "crying and screaming at the top of her lungs, that she could feel everything that was happening, and was also pleading for help" when she was forced to undergo an emergency caesarean section on Nov. 16, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The emergency operation was prompted when hospital staff was unable to detect the baby's heart rate, the article said.

"Mota was strapped down to the table and the emergency surgery proceeded without anesthesia," the Union-Tribune reported.

"Mota said she remembers, inside the operating room, the doctor saying 'page him, keep paging him.' Then 'all of the sudden I felt cutting on my stomach … a burning sensation,'" the article read.

The lawsuit stated Dr. David Seif, the hospital's anesthesiologist, did not respond to numerous pages. He and the obstetrician, Dr. Sandra Lopez, as well as, Tri-City Medical Center are now the defendants in the lawsuit.

Roughly one-third of all babies, or 1.3 million, are born via caesarean section, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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