Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 6, Episode 9 - Playing With Fire - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: When a 28-year-old man erupts in a violent rage at his brother's birthday party,
everyone is taken aback. He's screaming, he's angry, very agitated. NARRATOR: But when he collapses to the ground
and dies only moments later, his family can hardly believe their eyes. DR. G: I can't imagine what they're going through.
They deserve an answer. NARRATOR: Then, a pregnant woman dies suddenly leaving her husband and parents in a state of shock.
DR. G: The families lost two in one. That's two individuals in a family at once that they're grieving for.
NARRATOR: But the case gets stranger by the moment as evidence suggests the young mother may have
been keeping a deadly secret. She was playing with fire, and unfortunately, it didn't work out for her.
NARRATOR: Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries, shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of Dr. G., Medical Examiner.
As one of America's top forensic pathologists, Dr. Jan Garvaglia encounters all types of deadly diseases.
This is a sick, sick [INAUDIBLE].. That is just a shame. NARRATOR: But there's one that she
always finds especially tragic. DR. G: It's been called one of the most devastating illnesses
to mankind, not for just what it does to the person, for what it does to the family.
NARRATOR: And unfortunately, one of its victims has just arrived at the district nine morgue.
It's a warm spring afternoon in Saint Cloud, Florida, and 28-year-old John Gardner is enjoying
the day with his family, grilling and playing baseball. DR. G: He's at his younger brother's birthday party.
The family's over there. They're out in the backyard, and they're just having a good time.
NARRATOR: But without warning, John's behavior suddenly changes. DR. G: He becomes extremely violent, extremely aggressive.
He starts attacking one of the cousins. And then says he's going to go get the baseball bat
and kill her. - Bash your brains. I'm just gonna drive it right through your forehead.
I'm getting the bat. I'm gonna-- DR. G: The family tries to bring him to the ground to keep
him from getting the bat. But during this struggle, he collapses and becomes unresponsive.
[SIRENS WAILING] They immediately call EMS, but any attempts of resuscitation are all in vain.
He dies. [MUSIC PLAYING] [SIRENS WAILING] NARRATOR: Now, shaken by their sudden loss, John's family
looks to Dr. G for answers. And she can't help but wonder if they may have somehow
contributed to his death. DR. G: Did they play a role in his death or not? It's definitely something we need to answer.
OK, so-- NARRATOR: As a first step, Dr. G. reads through the investigator's report.
Now, there's some really sad facts about this case. He does have schizophrenia. That's a shame.
DR. CARLOS RUIZ: Schizophrenia is a disorder where A person has problems with their thought process,
and as a result, can sometimes exhibit bizarre, strange behaviors. DR. G: They have paranoid thoughts
that people are after them. They hear voices in their head. NARRATOR: Given this history, Dr. G.
wonders if John's death may have had something to do with his mental illness. DR. G: People with schizophrenia have
a decreased life expectancy. They have an increased incidence of many different kinds
of natural disease mostly because of their lifestyle. They're usually chainsmokers.
They're obese, and they don't take very good care of themselves. It's going to take me a while to read this.
NARRATOR: Sure enough, the medical records confirm that John fits this profile to a T. He's overweight, a heavy smoker,
and has a history of hypertension or high blood pressure. This is a troubled youth.
NARRATOR: And with no shortage of possibilities, an overdose is also high on her list of suspects.
DR. G: He's on medication. He's on some of the newer what's called atypical antipsychotics,
but it's not just that I'm going to focus on the schizophrenia. Another thing I really worry about in this fellow
would be a stimulant, a cocaine or a methamphetamine. NARRATOR: But Dr. G. must also consider an even
more chilling possibility. That when John's family tried to restrain him, they unintentionally killed him.
DR. G: Perhaps when they brought him down, he hit his head. So him dying from the trauma of the struggle
is a real possibility. So this is really wide open. I'm going to have to see how all of these components
play out with what I find at autopsy. OK, so when I first see him at the external exam,
he's clearly morbidly obese. Oh, boy. He's 69 inches and weighs 280 pounds. Somebody must have attempted CPR.
Oh, they did because they cut his clothes off. NARRATOR: Right off the bat, Dr. G.
can see that paramedics went to extreme measures to save John. He's got needle marks up and down his arms.
You see these? There's clearly a lot of intravenous lines in him where they were trying to resuscitate him.
So one on the wrist, too, right? Yeah. NARRATOR: Next, Dr. G. inspects his head, searching
for any signs of trauma, and it's not long before she finds a suspicious clue. DR. G: There is a small abrasion over his eyebrow.
There's clearly some trauma to his head. Is it because they attacked him and threw him
down to the ground and hit his head, or did something else happen? I don't know.
I have to keep an open mind. I'm going to let the body speak for itself. NARRATOR: Dr. G. has just discovered a small abrasion
on the forehead of 28-year-old John Gardner, who collapsed to the ground during a violent rage.
Now, she can't help but wonder if his family may have somehow contributed to his death.
DR. G: Perhaps when they brought him down, he hit his head. I'm not going to know if that played a role in his death
or not until I look into his head. So I reflect the scalp, and I do see a scalp contusion
or bruise, but no underlying skull fracture and no underlying hemorrhage. NARRATOR: But Dr. G. can't rule out fatal head trauma until she
examines the brain itself. Go ahead for the head. [SAW BUZZING] NARRATOR: Using an oscillating saw,
morgue technician Tom Hemphill saws open the skull. I remove the calvarium, and I don't see any evidence
of internal trauma. He doesn't look like he hit his head. NARRATOR: But despite the absence of trauma,
Dr. G.'s cranial exam is not over yet. DR. G: He's got this history of hypertension,
so he could have had possibly a hypertensive bleed. NARRATOR: Carefully, she slices through the brain tissue inch
by inch looking for any evidence of natural disease. DR. G: When I cut the brain, he had
really nothing wrong with it that I can see with my eyes. Right now, I'm not seeing much.
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, after an extensive inspection, Dr. G. still has little to go on.
DR. G: I can clearly rule out head trauma as his cause of death, but I need to do the internal examination on the rest of the body.
All righty. TOM HEMPHILL: All right. NARRATOR: Dr. G. makes a y incision across John's torso.
DR. G: I look for any evidence of bleeding underneath the skin, possibly evidence
that somebody was sitting on him or holding down his chest, but I really don't see any.
NARRATOR: Digging deeper, she scans his abdominal cavity for signs of trauma. His abdominal cavity looks fine.
Nothing. I don't see any trauma. All right, let's see what kind of tox we're getting.
NARRATOR: Next, Dr. G. takes blood and urine samples to send out for analysis. DR. G: Toxicology could be important in this case.
Is he taking something, some type of stimulant like a cocaine or methamphetamine that
could have precipitated this? NARRATOR: Then, she turns her full attention to John's chest cavity.
DR. G: Once I take that chest plate off, you can really see how small his pleural cavity is, the area
that the lungs can expand into. Look at that. He had a tremendous amount of visceral or abdominal fat
that's pressing on his diaphragm really decreasing his chest cavity, making it more difficult for him
to breathe and get oxygen. NARRATOR: But while Dr. G. doesn't believe this condition alone caused his death,
it may have contributed to it. I really can't rule out that the family didn't constrict
his breathing from the way they were possibly holding him because we already know that he's got a small chest cavity
and is going to have difficulty expanding his lungs. Were those lungs having more of a difficulty
expanding with everybody maybe sitting on top of him? That's a real possibility, but I would
have to rule out everything else before I could make that determination. NARRATOR: Searching for a more definitive cause of death,
she moves on to John's heart. And as Dr. G. removes the organ from the pericardial sac,
she immediately spots an alarming clue. There, I find something else. Look at this.
Something totally unexpected. [SOMBER MUSIC] NARRATOR: Dr. G. has just made a key discovery
in the internal exam of 28-year-old John Gardner. DR. G: When I see his heart, I can clearly see it's large.
And the heart is-- is this accurate? And when I weigh it, it's heavy. We have 500.
What is it that's causing his heart to be like that? OK, let's see. NARRATOR: To find out, she must thoroughly dissect the organ.
Hmm, it's a little thick. When I look at the muscle, he has a thickening of the left ventricle.
This tells me that the enlargement of his heart is from the effects of high blood pressure.
That's interesting. NARRATOR: High blood pressure forces the heart muscle to work harder, often causing
it to grow abnormally thick. DR. G: Certainly, the large heart is severe enough to have given him sudden cardiac arrhythmia,
but did that kill him? I don't know. NARRATOR: The problem is an arrhythmia leaves no physical evidence in the body.
DR. G: Arrhythmia is maybe the end process, but I have to a, rule out everything else,
and I also have to put it in the context of how he died. NARRATOR: And as the autopsy comes to an end,
Dr. G. still can't rule out the frightening possibility that when John's family to restrain him,
they unintentionally suffocated him. Do I have a preponderance of evidence of one way or the other?
I don't know, but the tox may answer those questions for us. NARRATOR: Three weeks after the autopsy
of 28-year-old John Gardner, his toxicology results arrive at Dr. G.'s office. DR. G: So I thought this was going to be a really involved
toxicology report because this person's on least two antipsychotic medications. And I suspected maybe there was some
either cocaine or methamphetamine possibly being used. As it turns out, there was no cocaine,
there's no methamphetamine, and there's really no antipsychotics at all. NARRATOR: In other words, John was not taking any medications
to control his schizophrenia in the hours leading up to his death. He must have stopped taking his antipsychotics,
and all of his aggressive behavior could have been just due to his underlying disease.
NARRATOR: It's an intriguing finding and certainly explains John's violent outburst,
but the report offers no other clues as to what could have caused his sudden death.
DR. G: Nothing screams out at us the cause of death. I'm clearly missing one piece of this puzzle
to help put this all together, and that is from the family. I need a better description of what was going on leading
up to and during that struggle. NARRATOR: Dr. G. calls John's brother, Adam, looking
for more details on what transpired in the moments before his death. DR. G: And what he states is that they
didn't throw him to the ground. They didn't restrain him while he was on the ground.
He actually dies and goes down and hits the ground while they're holding onto him.
That tells me a lot. OK, OK. NARRATOR: Considering this seemingly simple piece of information along with the toxicology results,
Dr. G. can finally connect all the dots and explain to John Gardner's family exactly what killed the 28-year-old
on that fateful afternoon. It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon, perfect weather for a family barbecue and backyard ballgame.
At first, John Gardner appears to be enjoying himself, but as Dr. G. learns, it's the calm before the storm.
DR. G: He must have stopped taking his medication because there was not a trace of it in his system.
NARRATOR: And without medication to manage his schizophrenia, John's behavior begins to spiral out of control.
He starts to get more and more paranoid. Yeah, yeah, keep talking about me. He's screaming.
He's angry, very agitated to the point where he starts to attack the cousin. What are you doing?
NARRATOR: But this is no ordinary schizophrenic episode. Dr. G. believes that sometime during his initial outburst,
John entered into a state doctors refer to as excited delirium, an extremely dangerous and life
threatening phenomenon. DR. G: This is something that's seen with schizophrenics,
but this is not just typical abnormal schizophrenic behavior. This is a very exaggerated violent behavior.
NARRATOR: It's unclear what exactly triggers excited delirium in schizophrenics, but scientists believe
it may be related to increased levels of a chemical in the brain called dopamine.
DR. G: That dopamine is elevated in schizophrenics, and if it gets high, it can precipitate
this kind of aggressive, delusional behavior. NARRATOR: And in this state of excited delirium--
You freaking talking about me? NARRATOR: --John simply snaps. He then says he wants to kill the cousin
and is looking for a baseball bat to do it with. NARRATOR: His brother and cousins
try to restrain him causing John to become even more agitated. And in turn, triggering a deadly chain reaction inside his body.
DR. CARLOS RUIZ: Your internal core body temperature goes up, which is, of course, very harmful
to the body and the brain. NARRATOR: It also forces his ailing heart to beat faster,
placing tremendous stress on the muscle until finally it lapses into a fatal arrhythmia.
DR. G: His heart muscle is quivering. He can't get a coordinated beat going. So consequently, his blood is not going to the rest
of his body, and he dies. He dies as a result of what forensic pathologists call this excited delirium associated
with his schizophrenia. Yes, this is Dr. Garavaglia at the Medical Examiner's Office.
NARRATOR: Dr. G. shares her final ruling with Adam and his family making one thing very clear.
DR. G: What didn't play a role is anything that his brother and cousins did to him.
He was probably without a pulse by the time he hits the ground. Get the slides back.
NARRATOR: Her findings bring John's family some sense of closure, but his death is another tragic example
of an ongoing battle, one that's being fought by millions of people every day. DR. G: All of these diagnosis of bipolar, schizophrenia,
and even major depression, they're all going to have an increased risk of dying suddenly,
not just because of their mental illness, but because of natural disease because they
tend to ignore their body. NARRATOR: Winning the battle, however, takes patience, hard work, and a true team
effort between doctors, patients, and their loved ones. Medications are effective only if taken properly.
But if they're on medication and with the support of family, with the support of treatment and counselors,
a person can leave a very effective and full life, In fact. DR. G: Medicine has come a long way,
and we can treat these diseases. But mental illness is, to me, one of the saddest illnesses
that can inflict us as humans. It truly can be devastating, and it just shows how we should
be thankful for our health. [TRANQUIL MUSIC] You did a nice job on the old neck.
NARRATOR: More often than not, Dr. G. sees fatalities that could have been avoided.
And in her next case, a simple piece of information may have prevented not one but two deaths.
They could have saved her, and they could have saved the baby. DR. G: On any kind of profession,
you want to keep abreast of what's going on and what other people are saying. And in forensics, that's no different.
We read journal articles, we go to conferences, but we also just like to talk about each other's cases.
NARRATOR: And one pathologist Dr. G. talks to regularly is her former colleague, Dr. Norma Jean Farley.
DR. G: Dr. Farley and I met when she was a resident in Bear County, Texas, and I was one of her teachers.
Immediately, we struck a chord, you know, some kindred souls or something. It's not unusual for her to call me up about a case,
or I call her up about a case. Is this Norma Farley? NARRATOR: More often than not, their conversations
turn to routine procedures. Yeah, hi. NARRATOR: But in February 2009, Dr. Farley
called with a particularly unusual case, one that threatened to stump both seasoned investigators.
Ah, are you kidding? You know, I think Dr. Farley wanted to share this case with me because hmm,
this is kind of a medical mystery. Why did she die? NARRATOR: Kate Edwards, mother of 13-month-old Alex
and 3-year-old Lisa, is anxiously awaiting the birth of her third child. So far, her pregnancy has gone smoothly with no complications.
But today, Kate is feeling a little short of breath. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: She had been complaining that morning
that she was having these very sharp, piercing pains to her chest. NARRATOR: Assuming it's just a bad case of indigestion,
Kate heads to her room to lie down. Can I come in? NARRATOR: But when her father-in-law checks
on her an hour later, it's clear right away that something's very wrong. Oh my god.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: He found her down in the bedroom and called EMS immediately.
My daughter-in-law is unresponsive. NARRATOR: Paramedics arrived within minutes,
but it's too late. Kate Edwards and her unborn child are already dead. I can't imagine how devastated this must be.
The families lost two in one. That's two individuals in a family at once that they're grieving for.
NARRATOR: Kate's body is quickly transported to the Ceballos Funeral Home in South Texas.
And as a first step, Dr. Farley begins reading through the investigator's report.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: She was approximately 36 weeks gestation, so about eight months.
We also got the name of the obstetrician. Hello, this is Dr. Jerome. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: The doctor informed my investigator
that she hadn't had any complications, and she's made it through two other pregnancies just fine.
DR. G: If she had a pre-existing medical condition, you would have thought the first two pregnancies
would have shown up then. NARRATOR: Still, there are pregnancy-related complications
Dr. Farley must consider. Probably most common that I see are pulmonary emboli or clots that travel up to the lungs.
There are a lot of hormonal changes, and you may even be less mobile at that late stage
in pregnancy. So you have several factors going on with a pregnancy that makes your blood clot more readily.
NARRATOR: It's also possible that Kate may have been suffering from pre-eclampsia or pregnancy
induced hypertension. Some pregnant women are more prone to get pregnancy induced high blood pressure.
The hypertension may cause a stroke. It could also cause a rupture of a blood vessel.
So those are two primary scenarios that I think about when I'm thinking about a pregnancy-related death.
Now, it is possible that maybe the cause of death has nothing to do with the pregnancy at all.
And of course, we always think about drugs. DR. G: Believe it or not, particularly
in that very young age group, they sometimes are still using their cocaine. NARRATOR: But perhaps even more disturbing
is the prospect that Kate could have fallen victim to foul play. A lot of pregnant women actually die from homicides
during pregnancy. It could be strangulations, which I see a little bit more frequently, and that's subtle.
So we may not have seen it at the scene. DR. G: So even though it's a low on our list in this case,
Dr. Farley couldn't rule that out until she did the autopsy. Got in today, man. NARRATOR: With a laundry list of possibilities,
Dr. Farley is optimistic the autopsy will bring Kate's family some sense of closure.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: They were looking forward to this delivery and this child, and now everything has changed.
Looking at the body, I notice that she's actually very healthy. Wow, she's pretty tall.
And she's very tall. She's 70 inches, so she's about 5' 10". She has very long arms and very long legs.
Her fingers are very, very long, and her toes are kind of long as well. You don't see it all that often.
Also be looking for if any kind of trauma to this person. She has a couple of very small abrasions
or scrapes on her left forehead, very tiny. The biggest one is about 2.8 centimeters.
I think that's probably from when she dropped at the time of death. Nope, that looks good.
NARRATOR: Next, Dr. Farley turns her attention to Kate's legs. I'm going to be looking for subtle changes
that may tell me that there's a clot or a thrombosis in the legs. One of the legs may be slightly more
swollen than the other side. But I didn't see any swelling in the legs. So I saw no external signs that there may
have been a pulmonary embolism. Picture. NARRATOR: But she can't rule anything out just yet.
To begin checking off suspects, Dr. Farley will need to look inside Kate's body.
OK, we're ready for the internal examination at this point. You need a knife? We'd be very careful while we do the y
incision, especially over the abdomen that do we don't cut too deeply. We're gonna have to go up over this belly.
I will have to spend a lot more time looking at the uterus and the fetus in this case.
The uterus is very big. It's way up here sitting high near the liver almost. Doing that autopsy on the baby is not
going to give you the answer on why the mom died necessarily, but it could have implications to any kind
of congenital disease that might run in that family. NARRATOR: Dr. Farley performs the delicate task
of opening the uterus to gain access to the fetus. I'm gonna start low and remove that uterus.
I look at all the features of this fetus just to make sure there's not any congenital anomalies that I
can pass on to the family. DR. G: When she opened that uterus, she found a perfectly intact 36 week
old gestational age male fetus. NARRATOR: With the body now open, Dr. Farley collects blood for toxicology tests.
So we've got plenty for toxicology. I'm a little bit worried about cocaine. Sometimes the family will clean it up because they're
embarrassed or-- so just in case. DR. G: This case may rest on toxicology. She's only 22 years old.
We don't know that much about her. NARRATOR: Dr. Farley packages up the samples that will be
sent to the lab for processing. Yeah, let's put her up on a block and see. NARRATOR: Then she turns her attention back
to the autopsy starting with an organ high on her list of suspects. You think-- let's take the lungs out first,
and then I'll work on that. NARRATOR: One vessel at a time, Dr. Farley cuts into the pulmonary arteries.
And I'm going to look and see if there are any clots or emboli in the lungs. We'll look in these veins, see if we see the culprit
that may have traveled up. NARRATOR: But she's surprised to find no sign of blood clots.
Wow. So I've now ruled out pulmonary embolus as the cause of death. So we're gonna move on.
We've ruled out a few things. NARRATOR: But then as Dr. Farley makes her way to the heart,
she sees something that stops her dead in her tracks. That's unusual. You don't see that that often.
That's pretty big. [MUSIC PLAYING] Clamp. NARRATOR: Dr. Farley has just come face
to face with a shocking discovery in the autopsy of 22-year-old Kate Edwards. Something is terribly wrong with her pericardial sac,
the protective membrane surrounding the heart. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: It's bulging outward,
and it's looking blue instead of the usual tan. And this would have accumulated fairly quickly.
NARRATOR: To find out what's wrong, Dr. Farley pierces the sac with her scalpel and gets her first look inside.
Make sure-- We're seeing blood, which is kind of unexpected. I have to scoop the blood out and measure how much is there,
and there's 550 CCs of blood. A lot of blood in the heart sac. When this much blood is in the pericardial sac,
it causes the heart to stop. NARRATOR: This is called a cardiac tamponade, and it's fatal.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: Now, we have to figure out where that blood is coming from.
NARRATOR: To find out, Dr. Farley carefully removes the heart and immediately spots the culprit,
a tear in Kate's aorta. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: There's probably [INAUDIBLE].. There was a large here there.
It's long, it's almost three centimeters. NARRATOR: Attached to the top of the heart muscle,
the aorta is the largest blood vessel in the body. So this tear allows the blood that's
supposed to be pumping to all of the body to seep through this hole and accumulate
within the heart sac. I think, you know, Norma found the immediate cause of death.
It was the cardiac tamponade, but really, Norma and I don't like to just stop there.
NARRATOR: Now, Dr. Farley is determined to figure out what caused the tear in the first place,
and she has a hunch as to what it might be. Now, this type of dissection or tear, we
see that in hypertension. NARRATOR: Dr. Farley collects tissue samples of the heart muscle to examine under the microscope.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: --from death itself. So it ruptured-- NARRATOR: But first, she inspects
the organ for any signs of high blood pressure. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: Looking at it, it was totally normal.
The coronary arteries were normal. The cardiac valves looked beautiful. Very healthy looking heart.
NARRATOR: It's a surprising finding, but with hypertension now ruled out, Dr. Farley is forced to consider the unthinkable.
DR. G: Cocaine is still a possibility because it can cause an aortic dissection.
And even though this individual is pregnant, she may have not stopped using illicit drugs if she
was used to using them before. So I need to wait for the toxicology results. Now it's just really a waiting game.
NARRATOR: And it's a difficult wait for Kate's grieving family. DR. G: It's all happened so fast.
I can't imagine how the family feels. They deserve an answer. [SOMBER MUSIC] Where's his folder?
NARRATOR: Dr. G.'s colleague, Dr. Norma Jean Farley has yet to crack the case of 22-year-old Kate
Edwards, who was over eight months pregnant when she died. So far, she's ruled out all of her initial theories
except one, drugs. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: I'm going to have to wait for the toxicology results
because cocaine can actually cause aortic dissections. Hi, how are you? So finally, I get the toxicology,
and I'm very anxious to see if there's anything that could help me. NARRATOR: Dr. Farley immediately scans the page for any evidence
that cocaine may have caused Kate's aorta to rip open. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: And it's totally negative,
so there's no illicit drugs. DR. G: But she still doesn't have the answer of why.
What really caused this if it wasn't the cocaine? DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: I begin to worry
now that I may never have the answers for this family. I still need to wait for the microscopic sections
of the aorta to see if there's anything there that could clue me into the direction
of what happened in this case. About four days later, I get my microscopics back.
NARRATOR: And when she places the slide of Kate's aortic tissue under the microscope,
the veteran pathologist can hardly believe her eyes. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: I do see that the elastic fibers instead
of holding together, kind of like the elastic waistband of a pants, they're starting to pull apart.
NARRATOR: Dr. Farley immediately recognizes this as a telltale sign of Marfan syndrome,
a rare connective tissue disorder that is usually not fatal. In Marfan syndrome, there's an abnormal gene
that helps make up the elastic fibers in the body. Marfan syndrome allows the elastic fibers
not to actually form properly, and they begin to spread apart. NARRATOR: People with this disorder often have long
fingers and toes like Kate's. It causes the extremities to get very long, causing the very tall statute in these individuals.
NARRATOR: But while the physical characteristics themselves don't pose a health risk, Marfan syndrome can increase
the risk of an aortal tear. And the cause of death with most adults with Marfan's is going to be the dissection of the aorta.
NARRATOR: All signs now point to Marfan, but there's one problem. Dr. Farley can't find a single mention of it
in Kate's medical records from her obstetrician. So she calls the doctor, and this is the part I think is
interesting is the doctor's like, no way does this girl have Marfan's. Are you crazy?
You know, I've been taking care of her her whole pregnancy. She's got no history.
And Norma actually asked the husband, no way this girl has Marfan's. You know, I've been married to her.
Norma was like a little bit disappointed cause she really thought it all fit together nicely.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: So now, I'm adamant that I need to know is there any family history
here because Marfan syndrome is inherited. DR. G: I agree with Dr. Farley. She should dig a little deeper.
I would do the same thing. NARRATOR: As a next step, Dr. Farley reaches out to Kate's mother, and what she reveals
about her daughter's past provides the key to the entire case. Sure. Bye bye. NARRATOR: At just 22 years old, Kate Edwards
is in the prime of her life, and by all appearances, she's perfectly healthy. But Dr. Farley now knows that Kate
was keeping a deadly secret. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: The mother said well, of course,
my daughter had Marfan syndrome. She was diagnosed very young, around 11 to 12 years old.
NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to Kate, over the past 11 years, Marfan syndrome has caused the tissue in her aorta
to become extremely weak. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: There's high risk for an individual
with this type of disorder to get pregnant because with the increased blood volume during pregnancy,
they're at high risk for having rupture of the aorta. NARRATOR: On the morning of her death,
Kate thinks she has indigestion. But in fact, it's infinitely more serious. Her aorta, the largest blood vessel in the 22 year
old's body is starting to tear. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: And that was a sharp, stabbing chest
pain that she was feeling. NARRATOR: Kate lies down hoping the pain will pass, but by then, it's already far too late.
DR. G: Her aorta couldn't take it anymore at that point when she had chest pain.
DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: The elastic fibers that hold the aorta together cause it to dilate and balloon
and had it got as wide as it could get. And at that point, the aorta tore. The blood began to pump out of that hole
and into the heart sac. It put pressure on the heart causing the heart to stop. And her father-in-law found her a few minutes later.
My daughter-in-law's unresponsive. She's on the floor. She's pregnant. NARRATOR: After three weeks, Dr. Farley finally closes the case
on Kate Edwards and makes the difficult call to her family to share her findings.
DR. G: I don't know how her family felt. If I was her husband, I would be sad and angry at the same time
to think she should have taken better care of herself, and yet terribly sad that she died.
NARRATOR: The tragedy is compounded by the possibility that Kate's sudden death along with that of her unborn child
could have been prevented if only she had shared her previous diagnosis with her obstetrician.
She had never told the physician that she had this syndrome. DR. G: She had had two other pregnancies,
and nothing had happened. She was playing with fire, and unfortunately, it didn't work
out for her that third time. That was irresponsible. DR. NORMA JEAN FARLEY: If she had actually told her doctor,
he would have followed her much more closely. These individuals can actual undergo
echocardiograms frequently and follow the size of that aorta. DR. G: They could have saved her,
and they could have saved the baby. As a medical examiner, I come across families all the time
that are not forthright about what was going on, about what this person was doing because they're
trying to hide something. I can understand it. I'm the medical examiner. You shouldn't be doing that to your doctor.
They need to know everything because your-- that's your life at stake. That's a whole different ballgame.

Dr. Farley discusses the bizarre case of a pregnant mother who suddenly dies. As the autopsy unfolds, Dr. Farley uncovers information that could have saved her and her unborn child’s life.

A Florida medical examiner takes viewers through puzzling cases while explaining procedures and conclusions.

Brief Summary

John Gardner's death links to untreated schizophrenia; Kate Edwards' death reveals undiagnosed Marfan syndrome leading to aortic tear.

Key points

A Family's Sudden Loss. A 28-year-old man dies unexpectedly after a violent outburst at a birthday party.
The Mystery of Excited Delirium. Dr. G investigates the dangerous state of excited delirium in a schizophrenic patient.
The Tragic Impact of Mental Illness. Dr. G discusses the increased risk of sudden death among those with mental illnesses.
Shocking Discovery in Autopsy. Dr. Farley uncovers a serious issue with Kate's heart during the autopsy.
Marfan Syndrome Revealed. A hidden diagnosis explains the tragic circumstances of Kate's death.
Preventable Tragedy. Kate's death could have been avoided with proper disclosure of her condition.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is a sick, sick [INAUDIBLE]..

Dr. G expresses her dismay at a case.

1:41WatchJun 22, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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