The “smell of burning flesh” alerted physicians with Lovelace Women’s Hospital and the Women’s Specialists of New Mexico that something was wrong during an otherwise routine cesarean section procedure at the hospital.
A lawsuit against the hospital and physicians alleges that physicians left an electrocautery device, a surgical tool commonly used to control bleeding, unattended on a new mother’s thigh during the procedure. Staff later discovered that the audible alarm had been silenced and one physician admitted that they had not read the device’s instructions.
Nonetheless, attorneys for the hospital and doctors say the doctor’s shouldn’t be liable for the new mother’s injuries.
According to the hospital’s note, the burn is a “first degree” burn “two cm long,” but images of the wound in case evidence seen by NM.News appears to show a much larger and more significant burn, described in the lawsuit as being more than three inches in length and one inch deep.
“It turned what should have been the best day of her life—giving birth to a child—into a terrible moment,” says the mother’s attorney, Jason Vigil of Will Ferguson & Associates.
The suit alleges that the doctor failed to return the device to its safety holster after using it, but left it near the patient’s leg. Vigil says that the device comes with back-up safety and an audible alarm, but the alarm had been turned all the way down before the incident. The surgical crew was reportedly alerted to the situation when they smelled burning flesh.
“This was preventable,” says Vigil. “It’s two obvious steps that a kindergartener could follow. That’s the lesson: Just put your toys away when you’re not using them.”
Vigil says the hospital does have a written policy for these kinds of incidents. “But when I asked the nurses employed by Lovelace if they’d looked at the policy, none of them even knew the policy existed,” he says. He also notes that one provider didn’t know the device had a volume control, and the doctor testified that she had never read the electrocautery device’s manufacturer’s instructions.
The lawsuit also claims that hospital staff refused to let the patient see her wound for a number of days and attempted to downplay its severity in their delivery report. It also claims that the patient wasn’t allowed to let anyone else treat the injury until it was too late.
Women’s Specialists of New Mexico has denied all wrongdoing, according to court records. The providers acknowledge that a burn occurred but refer to it only as “an accident.” It objected to the plaintiff’s requests to admit fault and said that staff never breached the standard of care.
Vigil says evidence shows that the provider is clearly at fault and aware of it but refuses to admit it.
“This is a big reason why medical malpractice insurance premiums might be high,” he says. “Doctors litigate clear malpractice cases tooth-and-nail, when they could resolve cases fairly and sooner and save money.”
Lovelace Women’s Health is owned by a private equity firm, Ardent Health, as are many other New Mexico medical facilities. According to a 2023 Harvard Medical School study published in JAMA, private equity-owned hospitals reported roughly 25 percent more hospital-acquired conditions than other hospitals.
A 2025 report from the New Mexico State Legislature on hospital profits showed that Lovelace Women’s Hospital generated a profit of $28,592,945 in 2024. National ratings for hospitals maintained by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services assigned the hospital two out of five stars for overall quality and patient satisfaction.
Neither Lovelace Women’s Hospital nor Women’s Specialists of New Mexico responded to requests for comment. The lawsuit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
