The 19-year-old boy who was rolled into the operating room of St. Margaret's Hospital in Spring Valley, Ill. had no history of heart trouble, so Surgeon Russell Simonetta confidently ordered an anesthetic : cyclopropane, after an intravenous injection of thiopental sodium. Within two hours, Dr. Simonetta, assisted by Dr. Henry Jacobs, had completed his surgery: cleaning and setting an elbow fractured when the patient was pinned under a tractor. Then, as he was about to be wheeled out, the boy's heart stopped.
What happened next was one more striking example of how a cool,...
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