DENNIS
QUAID
WAN S TO
SAVE
YOUR LIFE
After his infant twins nearly died from an accidental drug overdose, the energetic actor
found a bold new mission: to help hospitals prevent medical mistakes By MEG GRANT
It was, Dennis Quaid remembers, “the worst day of our lives.”
On the morning of November 19, 2007, the actor and his wife,
Kimberly, rushed to Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai hospital—
one of the nation’s best health care facilities—where their
12-day-old twins had been admitted two days before for treat-
ment of routine staph infections. Their pediatrician and the
head nurse met them at the door of their babies’ room, where
a cluster of doctors hovered over Thomas Boone (known as
T. Boone) and his sister, Zoe Grace (or Z.G.). “We could see
them working on the kids,” Quaid says. “It was chilling.”
The pediatrician quietly informed the nervous parents that
PHOTOGRAPH BY ART STREIBER
the twins had inadvertently been massively overdosed with a
blood thinner called heparin, putting them at risk of bleeding
to death. “Initially, I felt this really couldn’t be happening,”
the actor remembers. “Then I felt fear—and helplessness.”
Dennis and Kimberly went to the twins’ bedsides and
watched, immobilized. “They were bleeding out of every
place where they’d been poked and prodded,” says Quaid.
In an attempt to stanch the flow, a doctor placed a clamp on
T. Boone’s umbilical cord. A stream of blood shot across the
room, splattering the wall. “We were in shock,” says Quaid.
