PHOENIX -- Lou Anne Herron knew something was terribly wrong. "Help me. What´s wrong with me? My legs are numb," the 33-year-old asked as she rested on a recovery room gurney following a legal abortion. "There´s nothing wrong with you," an abortion facility clinic employee responded. "The bleeding has stopped." But it hadn´t. Witnesses would later tell police that Herron turned pale as a huge pool of blood grew beneath her, soaking the sheet from her waist to her toes. She eventually bled out and died with a gash in her uterine wall. Her abortion practitioner and the abortion facility administrator now face manslaughter charges, two of only a handful of people nationwide to be criminally charged for medical treatment decisions. Most such cases are handled through medical malpractice lawsuits and discipline by state medical boards. No precise statistics are kept on criminal prosecutions of medical professionals. But while legitimate doctors and observers agree such cases remain rare, some say they appear to be on the rise. "Five or six or seven years ago, you never heard about it. Now you see them about once a year or so," said Dr. Nancy Dickey, president of the American Medical Association. "When you ask these district attorneys about it, they say somebody has to hold these people accountable." Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said he considered the possible consequences when he decided to prosecute Dr. John Biskind and abortion facility administrator Carol Stuart Schadoff in Herron´s death. "I´ll be frank. I had some serious concerns about whether this would put a chilling effect on what doctors do," Romley said. He said conduct in the case was so outrageous, it went beyond negligence, and medical professionals he spoke with agreed. "It shocks the conscience," Romley said. The police report on the case paints a chaotic picture. Witnesses said Biskind was asked to look at Herron as the puddle of blood grew but refused, not wanting his lunch interrupted. Witnesses told police Biskind failed to do much more than peek into the recovery room and apparently left before paramedics arrived at the A-Z Women´s Center and found Herron dead. An autopsy found her uterus had been ruptured by a medical instrument. They also said Stuart Schadoff didn´t want paramedics called immediately. First, she called an assistant from an affiliated abortion facility 20 minutes away -- even though there was a hospital across the street -- and later ordered another medical assistant to page Biskind before calling 911. Employees at the since-closed abortion facility told police that Herron´s pregnancy may have been past Arizona´s 24-week limit for an abortion and that a number of sonograms were taken at different angles, possibly to make Herron appear as though she was still eligible for the abortion. Biskind and Stuart Schadoff have both pleaded innocent. Stuart Schadoff´s attorney, Cameron Morgan, wouldn´t comment beyond saying that his client was innocent and had only worked at the abortion facility for about two weeks. Biskind´s attorney, Lawrence Kazan, said Biskind is innocent and he believes the abortion practitioner is being singled out because the case involved an abortion death -- a charge Romley denies. Among the most recent similar cases is an abortion death in Riverside, Calif. Second-degree murder charges are pending against a 67-year-old abortion practitioner whose legal abortion killed a woman. He is expected to go to trial this summer.