A Roanoke anesthesiologist has sued Carilion Clinic's vice chairman of surgery for defamation over remarks made after a patient died during surgery in November.

Dr. Bradley Cashion, an anesthesiologist with Anesthesiology Consultants of Virginia, filed the civil lawsuit against Dr. Stephen Smith on Dec. 29 alleging that Smith accused him of "euthanizing" the patient.

Cashion is seeking $2.35 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Smith, who has worked for Carilion for two years, has not yet filed a response in court. A copy of the complaint was served to him on Jan. 12.

Smith referred questions to his attorney, Paul Beers, but said, "We will be vigorously denying the allegations."

Beers said, "Dr. Smith said nothing defamatory, he said nothing improper; everything he said needed to be said. We reject in its entirety Dr. Cashion's lawsuit against this fine trauma surgeon Dr. Smith."

A message seeking comment from Cashion was returned by Cashion's attorney, Scott Austin.

"He [Cashion] is truly one of the genuinely nice and respected men in Roanoke," Austin said. "He has a reputation that is worthy of being envious. ... He had no choice to do this in a public way considering that the comment was made in a public way."

According to the complaint, the remarks first occurred in the operating room at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital on Nov. 19 in the presence of another doctor and several nurses. Later the remarks were repeated in the hospital's hallway and during a Dec. 2 meeting with Carilion leadership to discuss the situation, the lawsuit states.

The two doctors were providing emergency surgery to a pedestrian who had been hit by a tractor-trailer, the complaint says. Cashion alleges Smith accused him of not trying, giving up on the patient and of not doing everything to save the patient.

"You determined from the beginning that he wasn't going to make it and purposefully didn't resuscitate him," the complaint says Smith said to Cashion.

But Cashion claims in the court filing that he did what he could to save the patient. He said the patient died because of the severity of the injuries.

The complaint does not name the patient, but The Roanoke Times reported that Steven Michael Lecroy, 53, died Nov. 19, after being hit the previous night by a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81 in Wythe County.

During the Dec. 2 meeting, according to the complaint, Smith used a basketball analogy to describe Cashion's performance during the surgery: "We [the trauma surgeons] were playing full court press and you were playing four corners."