A man with a cough went to a Florida doctor. He wound up in a coma for 42 days

David J. Neal, Miami HeraldMiami Herald

A patient going from a sore throat and cough to a 42-day coma formed the basis for a state complaint against a Tampa doctor.

The Florida Department of Health administrative complaint against Dr. Antonio Ocana starts the process that can end with discipline from the state Board of Medicine. The malpractice suit against Ocana that followed this 2019 episode was settled in 2022 with Ocana’s malpractice insurance paying, state records say, $237,500 of the settlement to Pasco County resident Rafael Cardona.

Ocana received license No. ME95608 in Florida since April 17, 2006, with no punitive actions listed on that license entry. Ocana didn’t return a message from the Miami Herald left for him at Ocana Medical Center.

That’s where 75-year-old Cardona went on Jan. 14, 2019, with a sore throat, body aches and a cough.

READ MORE: A Florida doctor without his hearing aid couldn’t hear his colonoscopy patient scream

Cough to coma

The complaint says the medical center’s records don’t say who Cardona saw or “whether a physical examination took place” on Jan. 14.

Cardona came back on Jan. 24, the complaint and the lawsuit say, with “complaints of a deep cough with chest pains and upper left back pain.”

The complaint says Ocana “did not perform or did not document performing an in-person evaluation” of Cardona on Jan. 24, but still prescribed an Albuterol inhaler, prednisone and Tramadol.

Cardona’s lawsuit says Ocana wasn’t in the office and prescribed the medications based on what he was told by a medical center employee.

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The complaint said Cardona came back to Ocana Medical Center the next day with worse left mid-back pain that got worse when he took deep breaths.

“The medical records do not reflect who [Cardona] saw at the Jan. 25, 2019 visit, but [Ocana] signed off on the visit note,” the complaint said. Ocana “did not perform or did not document performing an in-person evaluation of [Cardona] on Jan. 25, 2019.

“The standard of care required that [Ocana] refer [Cardona] for specialized or emergency consultation during the Jan. 24, 2019 or Jan. 25, 2019 visit.”

On Jan. 28, 2019, Cardona went to St. Joseph’s Hospital, the complaint said, where doctors determined he had pneumonia that put him into septic shock.

That led to Cardona being put into a medically-induced coma for 42 days and lung damage that included a pulmonary abscess, which the University of Buffalo Dr. Sanjay Sethi says is “a necrotizing lung infection characterized by a pus-filled cavitary lesion.”