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Agent: Surgeon who hid bullet delayed investigation

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The head of trauma at Tampa General Hospital is accused of hiding evidence in a shooting investigation.

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI and LINDSAY PETERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 17, 2009

TAMPA - The investigation into the shooting of a homicide fugitive by U.S. marshals was delayed for several weeks because a respected trauma surgeon hid a bullet he had removed from the suspect, a state law enforcement official said this morning.

Investigators think David J. Ciesla, the head of trauma at Tampa General Hospital, wanted the bullet as a souvenir.

Ciesla, 42, was charged Wednesday with one misdemeanor count of giving false statements to law enforcement and one count of resisting or obstructing an officer without violence.

The case has investigators and medical professionals scratching their heads.

Among them is Sally Garneski, spokeswoman with the American College of Surgeons.

"This is the first time I've heard of anything like that" in 20 years with the organization, she said. "I think it's highly unusual."

On April 21, authorities say, Ciesla performed emergency surgery on Thomas McCoy, a fugitive in a fatal shooting that month in DeFuniak Springs.

U.S. marshals had tracked McCoy to a hotel on Busch Boulevard. He was shot in the shoulder and buttocks after he drew a gun on agents as they tried to apprehend him, authorities said.

Two Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents spent four hours in the TGH operating room as McCoy underwent surgery, investigators said. Ciesla told the agents that two .40-caliber bullets fired from a Glock pistol would have to remain inside McCoy, said Jim Madden, FDLE special agent in charge of the Tampa office.

A surgery resident, however, had seen Ciesla remove a bullet from near McCoy's liver and hide it in his surgical glove.

Ciesla's act delayed the investigation into the shooting by several weeks.

"We were waiting to get additional information … we had to wait to recover the projectile," Madden said.

Investigators also needed to do additional testing on the bullet because of "chain of custody" issues, which relate to legal requirements that investigators keep track of evidence.

Ultimately, Madden said, the investigation determined that the shooting was justified and "the marshal was acting within the lawful scope of his duty."

The surgery resident who witnessed the operating room incident reported it to supervisors immediately, investigators say.

Ciesla turned the bullet over to FDLE agents April 28, by which time he had retained an attorney. He is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 17.

Ciesla is an associate professor of surgery and serves as division director for Trauma/Critical Care at the University of South Florida. He also trains Special Operations Command medics to prepare them for service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As of April, his annual salary at USF was more than $499,000.

Ciesla grew up in Denver and went to medical school at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, where he also did his trauma research and critical care fellowships.

He was a surgeon at Denver Health medical center and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine between 2002 and 2006.

In early 2006, Ciesla went from Colorado to one of the top trauma care jobs at the Washington Hospital Center in the nation's capital.

In a story on the medical center's Web site, he talked about how much he enjoyed trauma surgery.

"I think it's the greatest job in the world," he said. "There is something satisfying about taking a critically injured patient and saving their life, or saving a limb or preventing what could become a possibly morbid situation and getting a patient back to where they were pre-injury."

He also talked about working under stress: "Trauma surgeons have to be able to operate on any part of the body under any conditions – usually during times of extreme emergency because of a life-threatening situation."

In a statement issued Thursday, Tampa General and the USF College of Medicine said: "It is our understanding that Dr. Ciesla indicated that he had made a mistake and had apologized for his error."

A spokesman said USF has taken "corrective action" but did not provide details.

"We will review it internally," spokesman Michael Hoad said Friday.

He said what Ciesla did was wrong. For law enforcement, it's a misdemeanor. But for the university, it's not so easy to classify.

"There's no malpractice to it," Hoad said. "It's very hard to define."

Madden is puzzled about what might have motivated the surgeon to take the bullet.

"I think it's something stupid that he did," he said. "I don't know any other way to describe somebody that has that type of training and that type of expertise doing something like this.

"You want to say, 'What were you thinking?'"

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 and reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834.

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