Left: Emmalyn Nguyen/ Right: Dr. Geoffrey Kim booking photo Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.
A plastic surgeon in Colorado who fatally left 18-year-old Emmalyn Nguyen unconscious for five hours in 2019 after she was given seven times the amount of anesthesia necessary before breast surgery will spend 15 days in jail.
Plastic surgeon Geoffrey Kim administered CPR but was not successful in reviving her. In addition to the 15-day sentence, he will be on probation for two years, according to records obtained by Law&Crime and was assessed roughly $70,000 in fines. Kim was convicted of attempted manslaughter and obstruction of telephone service this June after admitting to waiting more than five hours to call 911 when Nguyen first stopped breathing.
Nguyen went into cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness. She entered a coma that lasted 14 months, unable to speak, and in need of constant health care before dying in a nursing home in October 2020, according to CBS.
Nurses who worked at the Greenwood, Colorado, plastic surgery office testified at Kim’s trial. They reportedly told prosecutors they wanted to call for help, but Kim told them not to as the minutes and hours dragged on.
Rex Meeker, the former nurse anesthetist at Colorado Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery who ultimately administered the deadly dose to Nguyen, testified against Kim at trial and said the doctor strictly forbade anyone from calling for emergency services, and he refused to relent.
“I told him we should send her to the hospital, and I added, it’s standard operating procedure,” Meeker said, local Fox affiliate KDVR reported.
Meeker’s charges, including criminally negligent homicide and reckless manslaughter, were dismissed in September 2022, KUSA reported. He was initially charged alongside Kim. The anesthetist also surrendered his license because a state board said he had an independent duty to call for help regardless of Kim’s so-called “orders.”
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According to KDVR, he said he saw the young woman “turn blue” after he administered the anesthesia that investigators later determined to contain seven times the amount of fentanyl necessary. Kim’s lawyers pointed the finger at Meeker at trial, arguing Meeker was responsible for the teenager’s death and that no matter how long Nguyen was left unconscious, it would have been too late to help her because of the massive dose.
“The (prosecution) makes a big deal about how this delay happened,” Kim’s attorney, John Richilano, said in June, the Canon City Daily Record reported. “And it shouldn’t have been that long — full stop. But it was not consequential. It did not cause Emmalyn’s injury.”
The lawyer said he didn’t know why Meeker gave Nguyen such a heavy dose.
“But Mr. Meeker did it. All while Emmalyn was under his exclusive care, and Dr. Kim was down the hall, waiting for the patient to be ready for her surgery,” Richilano argued.
After Kim spends 15 days in jail, he will remain on two years of supervised probation, and he will be allowed to continue practicing surgery.
The Colorado Medical Board agreed this August to allow him to continue his practice despite the conviction. While he must disclose to future patients that he was convicted of attempted manslaughter and obstruction of telephone service, there are no other restrictions. A representative for the medical board did not immediately return a request for comment to Law&Crime on Friday. Nor did an attorney for Kim.
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