Teenager Teegan Barnard who died just hours after childbirth at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester should have undergone medical procedure sooner, inquest hears

Teegan Barnard suffered a cardiac arrest two hours after delivering her healthy baby boy, Parker, at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester on September 9, 2019.

The ‘small’ 17-year-old from Havant suffered a ‘major’ bleed giving birth to Parker, who weighed 9lb 9oz, losing almost four litres of blood. As a result of the bleed, Teegan was starved of oxygen and suffered a severe brain injury. She later died at her home on October 7, 2019.

Now an ongoing inquest into her death has heard a potentially life-saving measure should have been undertaken sooner, according to an expert witness.

Mr Ehab Bishay, consultant thoracic surgeon at University Hospitals Birmingham, said it seemed that Teegan’s medical treatment was ‘going well’ and then became a ‘catastrophic situation’ as she was turned following treatment for her haemorrhage. Suddenly the teenager was not responding to ventilation and began to suffer air ‘ballooning’ across her body, leaving her arms so swollen her medical name band had to be cut from her wrist.

Speaking Mr Bishay said: “If you haven’t seen surgical emphysema, you might think anaphylaxis. It’s a horrific thing to see, and once you’ve seen it you never forget it.

“Teegan’s skin had distended so much with air a needle probably wouldn’t reach (a critical) cavity.

“It’s a dire arrest situation. Everything seemed to go wrong when she was being turned.”

Reading details from a Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch panel, coroner Dr Karen Henderson said the medical team had become ‘task focused’ on treating an anaphylaxis emergency in the face of a ‘very stressful’ situation. Teegan’s medical team undertook abdomen incisions to release trapped air, believing this was primarily located in the space between her lungs. These incisions were followed by two more between the teenager’s ribs in another attempt to relieve pressure on the lungs – a procedure that should have been undertaken sooner, according Mr Bishay.

The consultant said: “In my opinion the bilateral thoracotomies should have been undertaken sooner.

“Every minute counts. Had they been done sooner then that hypoxic brain (injury) would have been less likely.

“If you look at post-mortem, it’s clear the hypoxic brain injury was the real cause of death. It’s my opinion she wouldn’t have died had they been performed sooner.”

Mr Bishay said that the original abdomen incisions remained ‘the right thing to do’ as it allowed for Teegan’s circulation to restart.

But another expert witness, obstetric anaesthetist Dr David Levy, raised the issue of ‘hindsight bias’ and said that it would not have been ‘barn door obvious’ as to the most pressing treatment given the complexities of the emergency.

He said: “I don’t think I would have stuck needles in the chest earlier.”

He added: “I’m satisfied the team were thinking, ‘what has caused this (situation)?”

The inquest continues.