BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Seven years after the deaths of Demi Dominguez and her newborn son, the family’s wrongful death case against an on-call OB-GYN and a Bakersfield hospital has reached trial.<\/p>\n
Demi Dominguez was 23 and pregnant in 2019 when she sought treatment at Mercy Southwest Hospital with swelling and high blood pressure. <\/p>\n
Her family alleges the on-call OB-GYN, Arthur Park, never examined her during a 13-hour hospital stay, missing warning signs of preeclampsia. <\/p>\n
Park previously told investigators he did examine her.<\/p>\n
Demi later sought follow-up treatment at Memorial Hospital. Days after being discharged, she suffered a seizure and died. <\/p>\n
Her newborn son, Malakhi, delivered by emergency C-section, died just 13 hours after his birth. Park later surrendered his medical license.<\/p>\n
Demi had been just weeks away from graduating from Cal State Bakersfield. Instead of walking across the stage herself, her mother, Tracy Dominguez, accepted her degree.<\/p>\n
In a previous interview with 23ABC, Tracy described how devastating the loss was.<\/p>\n
“I was crawling. I was literally could not figure out how to dress myself,” Tracy Dominguez said.<\/p>\n
For Tracy, accountability became about more than her own family. She spent years pushing for stronger medical oversight, helping other families speak out and turning her grief into advocacy.<\/p>\n
“But I know that I’m carrying her legacy. I know that she’s saving lives. Malachi is saving lives,” Tracy said.<\/p>\n
The case is now before a jury in Bakersfield. Much of the first day was spent on voir dire; the process of questioning potential jurors to determine whether they can fairly hear the case. Opening statements are still to come.<\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Seven years after the deaths of Demi Dominguez and her newborn son, the family’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[76218,151,155,153,152,68532,192919,162,192920],"class_list":["post-496511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-arthur-park","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-demi-dominguez","tag-kern-county-court","tag-kern-county-news","tag-wrongful-death-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}