What Happens When The Anesthesia Does Not Work

This story makes my toes curl. A woman having eye surgery can feel everything that the doctor is doing but can not move or let him know. That is what happened to Carol Weihrer during surgery as the anesthesia coursing through her bloodstream felt like fire, he body is paralyzed, and she can only feel not respond.

The poor lady.

I was in the worst terror I have been in in my life,” Weihrer said. “I wanted to die.” She was having surgery to remove her diseased right eye — when things went terribly wrong. “Suddenly I heard the surgeon say ‘cut deeper, pull harder’ to the resident and it occurred to me that something here was not right,” Weihrer said.

And indeed it wasn’t. “And I realized suddenly I was awake and that they were not done,” she said.

Carol was experiencing a rare, but horrifying surgical nightmare called “anesthesia awareness.” She was awake, but paralyzed. The general anesthesia wasn’t working. “I was beginning to realize I was paralyzed,” she said. “But I can move a finger. Nothing. Try a toe. Nothing. A foot, a hand. My head…”

“Anesthesia awareness” happens when the medications used to paralyze the patient on the operating table work, but the other medications don’t. via wcbstv.com