By Alex Lasker
A Russian woman tragically died after she was administered embalming fluids instead of saline during a routine surgery, according to reports.
Ekaterina Fedyaeva, 27, was undergoing a procedure at a hospital in Ulyanovsk, Russia, in early April when her medics mistakenly put her on a formalin drip instead of a saline drip. The accidentally administered IV bag contained formaldehyde, a preservative used to prevent corpses from decomposing.
Fedyaeva came out of surgery suffering severe pain and convulsions, which lasted for two days before she slipped into a coma, according to the Sun.
Fedyaeva’s husband, Igor, and her mother, Galina Baryshnikova, were both present throughout the horrifying ordeal.
“Her legs were moving, she had convulsions, her whole body was shaking,” said her mother. “I put socks on her, then a robe, then a blanket but she was shivering to such an extent, I can’t even describe it.”
Baryshnikova claimed that doctors were aware of their fatal error for hours but still did nothing to help her daughter.
“They needed to take some urgent measures, but they did nothing,” she said. “I begged, ‘please help her, she is my only child.’ I think they just wanted me to go away and to hide everything.”
The bereaved mother said she wasn’t even officially told about the accident until she stumbled upon a group of doctors quietly discussing how to break the news to Fedyaeva’s family.
Fedyaeva was eventually put on life support and flown to a larger hospital in Moscow where she briefly awoke from her coma before dying from multiple organ failure. She was laid to rest on April 7.
A criminal investigation into her cause of death is reportedly underway.