071498Arizona: News of woman's botched abortion death now surfacing
Source: July 14, 1998 Arizona Republic

She was left to bleed 3 hours after abortion, ex-staffers say

Phoenix -- Louann Herron lay bleeding from a punctured uterus for more than three hours as a medical assistant at the A-Z Women's Center begged her supervisor to call 911, three former employees of the controversial abortion facility say.

By the time the supervisor paged Herron's doctor to get permission to call paramedics, it was too late.

Herron died hours after an abortion performed by John Biskind, the same person who delivered a full-term baby at the abortion facility June 30 after misdiagnosing the fetal age by 13 weeks. Biskind and center officials on Monday refused to comment on the case, which has prompted a police investigation.

Herron's encounter with the abortion facility began in a similar fashion. But it became a saga of disappointment, deception and death, according to three former employees who told their stories to The Arizona Republic.

According to the former employees, Herron, 32, was in the process of being divorced when she visited the abortion facility April 7 with a friend for an abortion. An employee - fairly new to the clinic - performed an ultrasound examination indicating that Herron was 23 weeks and a few days pregnant.

Arizona law permits abortions until the unborn child is "viable" - 23 weeks according to most medical definitions. The A-Z Women's Center advertises in the Yellow Pages as the only abortion facility in Arizona that performs abortions on unborn children up to 24 weeks along.

According to information provided by Planned Parenthood, the risk of death associated with abortion stands at one per 6,000 at 21 weeks into the pregnancy.

Because Herron was so close to the 24-week limit and because the person who performed the ultrasound was inexperienced, the abortion facility administrator sent her to a sister abortion facility in Glendale to have a second ultrasound done by a more experienced employee. That employee told The Republic that Herron was 24 weeks and four days pregnant.

The employee added that Herron cried when she was told the abortion facility could not perform the abortion. Herron went back to Biskand's abortion facility on McDowell Road and met with the administrator. Nine days after Herron's first visit, the administrator told employees that she had a "personal patient" coming in. The patient turned out to be Herron, now about 26 weeks pregnant.

Victoria Kimball is a registered nurse who quit the abortion facility after Herron died. She told The Republic that during Herron's April 16 visit, she overheard Biskind tell a medical assistant to take an ultrasound from a different angle to make Herron appear to be less than 24 weeks pregnant.

Herron underwent a procedure to begin dilating her cervix, then went home. She returned the next day about noon; Biskind began the abortion a little after noon and finished at 12:40 p.m. When Herron went into the clinic's recovery room, there was no nurse present. The nurse on duty had left about 10 minutes earlier.

Several medical assistants were present, two of them new and untrained. About 2 p.m., the assistants started to worry because Herron was still bleeding. Biskind told the assistants to give Herron medication for the bleeding, then left the abortion facility, the former employee said.

Herron remained in the recovery room, bleeding, for another two hours. At about 3:50 p.m., the frantic medical assistants asked the administrator to call 911. The supervisor insisted on paging Biskind first, saying she didn't "want trouble," the former employee said.

"There had to have been four other girls (medical assistants) in there," she continued. "None of them wanted to do anything. They were all scared. Two of them were brand new to the [abortion facility]. . . . They didn't know what to do."

Biskind told the employees to call paramedics. "He made it very clear that he was not coming back," the ex-employee said. "When the ambulance got there, (the administrator) kept stressing to them that she didn't want them to put the sirens on because she didn't want to alarm anybody."

On the 911 tape, the caller, another medical assistant, first tells the Phoenix Fire Department dispatcher to keep the sirens off and to come to the back of the clinic. She then tells the dispatcher the nature of the emergency. The dispatcher repeatedly asks the caller whether the clinic has oxygen. The caller says she doesn't know.

When paramedics arrived, CPR was not being administered, said Division Chief Bob Khan, so paramedics began the procedure. Paramedics were concerned about the large amount of blood Herron had lost, Khan said.

Herron was pronounced dead across the street at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause of death was hemorrhaging from a punctured uterus as a result of the abortion.

"This girl didn't have to die," Kimball said.

Authorities began looking into the abortion facility after the June 30 case. In that incident, Biskind began the abortion, but wound up delivering a full-term baby girl. The child, who suffered a skull fracture and two deep lacerations, fortunately shows no signs of brain damage.

Eight years ago, Biskind was admonished by the state Board of Medical Examiners ago for trying to abort another full-term baby, records show.

Records also reveal that the A-Z abortion facility has been the subject of several lawsuits. The abortion facility's CEO, Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch, has been the target of at least seven complaints to the examiners board.

The board has said that it received a complaint about Herron's death and is investigating the matter. Police and prosecutors have not said whether they are looking into Herron's death.

For more information on women who have died from legal abortions. See Roe v. Wade: 25 Years of Life Denied at http://www.prolife.org/rvw

For another example of clinic personnel trying to get 911 to arrive with "no sirens" to cover a bothced abortion, see Abortion: Call 911