Gandhi medico part of team that killed Joan Rivers

The identity of the third doctor involved in the unfortunate throat exam that killed comic actor Joan Rivers has been revealed. And she has connection with the city. She is Renuka Reddy Bankulla, an alumnus of Gandhi Medical College, who did her MD in 1991 before shifting to Flushing Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Centre where she got her professional training. The names cropped up after Rivers' daughter Melissa geared up to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Upper East Side clinic, where the tragedy occurred.

• Dr Renuka Reddy Bankulla, an alumnus of Gandhi Medical College was one of three doctors in the operation theatre during Rivers’ botched throat procedure
• The tragedy occurred in August and Dr Bankulla has been dismissed from service

Yorkville Endoscopy medical director Lawrence Cohen and acclaimed ENT specialist Gwen Korovin and the Indian-American anaesthesiologist were part of Rivers' treatment. Renuka, allegedly failed to record the patient’s weight, which is critical in determining the amount of anaesthesia was to be administered. If proper precautions were talent, it could have prevented the comedian's death, the New York Post reported.

The city medical examiner had ruled that Rivers' died of a severe lack of oxygen to the brain. The 47-year-old Bankulla has remained silent about the whole incident and her lawyer, Bruce Brady has said that they didn't have anything to comment on the matter.

She even declined to cooperate with the investigators for the US Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and had told probers only that she had given Rivers 120 milligrams of the powerful aesthetic Propofol - not the 300 stated in medical records. She explained that she had mistakenly "double-clicked" on computerised records.

Rivers' doctors ignored her dropping blood pressure and pulse and even failed to call 911 for 10 precious minutes as they attempted to resuscitate her once they realised she was dying. Prior to that, insiders, outside experts and the findings of a federal report revealed that Dr Lawrence Cohen and Gwen Korovin--along with Bankulla--carried on with their procedure as if nothing was wrong with Rivers.

But something was wrong at Yorkville Endoscopy on August 28 and the trouble started after 9 am, when Rivers was put under with normal vital signs. Fifteen minutes later, Rivers started showing signs of shock as her blood pressure dropped to 92/54 and her pulse fell to 56. The doctors failed to act when Rivers' vital signs dropped even further, reports the Post.

Instead, with the 81-year-old's blood pressure at 89/44 and her pulse at 54, the doctors administered propofol--the powerful anesthetic that led to the death of Michael Jackson. By the time 911 arrived at 9.47, paramedics found Rivers' turning blue form lack of oxygen.