Doctor pulled in to help Ohio execution team find vein during unsuccessful execution attempt

Doctor asked to help in Ohio execution attempt

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Federal court papers say that as an Ohio execution team tried to find a vein during an unsuccessful lethal injection attempt, prison staff asked a doctor for help.

Dr. Carmelita Bautista (bah-TEE’-stah) says in a deposition that she tried to insert an IV catheter into Romell Broom’s foot on Sept. 15.

Professional and ethical rules generally prohibit doctors from involvement in capital punishment. In the deposition, Bautista says she had never before been involved in an execution because doctors “are supposed to heal people.”

Bautista occasionally works at the medical office of the prison where Broom was held and was asked by an administrator to help with him.

Reached at her West Virginia home on Tuesday, Bautista says she doesn’t feel she assisted in the execution attempt.