Oxygen Cutoff That Killed One at Quebec COVID ICU Last Summer Blamed on Human Error

This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, blue/pink, cultured in the lab. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19. (NIAID-RML/AP/The Canadian Press)

MONTREAL—A Montreal−area health authority is blaming human error after oxygen was cut off to nine intensive care COVID-19 patients last spring, leaving one dead.

The news about the incident that occurred at Hopital Charles−Le Moyne, in Longueuil, Que., was first reported by La Presse today.

Health authority spokesperson Martine Lesage said today in an email that construction work last spring required part of the hospital’s medical gas network to be temporarily shut off.

She says a misinterpretation of a map of the gas network led to oxygen being cut off to the hospital’s COVID-19 intensive care unit on June 5.

Lesage says Maurice Leblanc, 71, died, and that the eight other patients recovered without serious consequences from the incident.

She says the regional health authority has issued recommendations aimed at ensuring similar incidents don’t happen again.