Joan Rivers: What We Know So Far About Yorkville Endoscopy and Rivers' Death

All about the procedure at Yorkville Endoscopy and safety measures taken.

ByABC News
September 5, 2014, 4:58 PM

— -- When Joan Rivers died Thursday after spending a week in the hospital following a cardiac arrest, attention turned to what procedure she was having done at a local New York City clinic and what the circumstances were surrounding her death.

The New York State Health Department told ABC News that it has opened a "full investigation" into Yorkville Endoscopy Center. As of now, there is no suspicion of wrongdoing and the investigation is routine, a source briefed on the case told ABC News.

Joan Rivers' Doctor's Office, Yorkville Endoscopy, Under Investigation - but Wrongdoing Not Suspected

Joan Rivers' Friend Deborah Norville Shares Details of the Comedian's Last Days

Here's the information that ABC News has gathered after talking to a variety of sources close to the comedian.

  • Rivers was undergoing what close friend Deborah Norville described as "a diagnostic procedure ... [to] see why her voice had gotten raspy."

  • The call to 911 from Yorkville Endoscopy came at 9:39 a.m. By 9:46 a.m., paramedics and other first responders were on scene. Rivers arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital at 10:08 a.m. She was already on life support and her condition at the time we are told was near death.

  • Norville added that Rivers had been in a "medically induced coma" for the past week.

  • According to a source briefed on the case: Rivers was under general anesthesia when she went into cardiac arrest at Yorkville Endoscopy on the Upper East Side.

  • According to a Yorkville Endoscopy spokesperson, the clinic "as a federally and state licensed facility, has the same level of life-saving and resuscitation devices (such as state-of-the-art cardiac defibrillators, airway management equipment, etc.) found in any hospital emergency room or hospital-based operating room."

  • The Yorkville spokesperson adds, "Yorkville Endoscopy has performed 18,000 procedures since it opened in February 2013. Yorkville Endoscopy has maintained an exceptional safety record that far exceeds the national average."

  • The New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office said the autopsy is complete but will not release results, pending the outcome of further testing.

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