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Randy Sellers and Joseph Reese obtained a defense verdict for a surgeon in a five day wrongful death trial. The decedent was a 46 year old male who was seen at the office of the defendant surgeon for a large umbilical hernia. The hernia was reduced (replaced into the abdomen) in the office and surgery was planned for the following month. Within six hours of leaving the office, the patient died at home of a perforated colon. The patient’s family claimed that the reduction should not have been performed and that it resulted in immediate leakage of bowel contents into the abdomen that led to overwhelming sepsis and death. The defense established that the reduction was in keeping with the standard of care and that the quick perforation and sudden death was related to an underlying cardiac condition.