As we said in Who Killed Seth Speken,  Dr. Tom Bertsch identified himself as the “Director of the I.C.U.” (a lie, since he was still a resident at the time).    Although presenting himself as a fully trained I.C.U. Physician was not true,  he did know the correct treatment Seth should have received.  His order read (see above):  “rather over sedate and intubate than undersedate and seizure.”  There were no orders from him to apply restraints.
         Seth had a human and legal right to have Dr. Bertsch’s orders carried out.  The treatment he should have had was, in fact, quite simple. He should have basically been put to sleep, monitored closely, and then gradually woken up once his body had completed withdrawing from Xanax.  Certainly, an intern could have done this, but should have been supervised closely at the bedside on to how to do it.
        It is tragic, both as his parents as well as individuals in the Medical field, to read Laurel Mayer’s deposition and see just what she did to our son.

     Who was Laurel Mayer (Hecht) at the time, on August 24, 1993, when she became Seth’s “Doctor?”  From her deposition, we learn that Laurel Mayer had graduated the Albert Einstein Medical College in the Bronx, New York in June of 1993.  She then began her Medical internship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital at the end of June.   Her first rotation was on a 14 bed Hospital unit for AIDS patients.  She did this for two and a half weeks.  She then went on vacation.

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