Top 10 Terrible Mistakes Made By Surgeons

• Surgical mistakes happen more commonly than people think
• One in every three thousand surgeries will result in something being left in the body of the patient
• Here are the most bizarre stories we have been able to dig out

1. Alex Mitchell of Massachusetts sued his surgeons after an Adept Med Fish was found still in his body after a routine hernia operation. The device is a foot long, and is made to protect the internal organs during the suturing phase. Mitchell suffered from severe pain, nausea, and vomiting, and had to have a second operation to remove the medical equipment. Jurors awarded Mr. Mitchell two hundred and eighty thousand dollars for his pain and suffering.

2. In Texas, a department of corrections inmate named Antonio Garcia had emergency surgery. After the surgery, six years to be exact, the man realized that he had a surgical needle still inside of him when he had a routine x-ray and the needle was visible on the film. A lawsuit was filed against Dr. Presley, who was the surgeon, and the hospital where the surgery took place.

3. In South Carolina, in the year 2004, pair of surgical scissors was left in a thirty eight year old woman after she underwent a hysterectomy. Experiencing pain, the woman went back to the doctor and then to the Emergency Room several times before ER doctors ordered an Ultrasound and CAT scan for her abdomen, and that is when the scissors became apparent. After undergoing surgery to have the object removed, she recovered just fine and the persistent pain stopped.

4. A forty one year old forklift driver named Robert Maxwell underwent bowel surgery at Skyline Medical Center, and kept experiencing severe pain and nausea for three weeks after the surgery. He finally went to the emergency room because the pain became unbearable, and doctors there discovered a piece of medicated gauze that had been left behind during his surgery.

5. A woman in Wisconsin underwent abdominal surgery for her appendix, and had severe discomfort for weeks afterwards. The pain started to dull down, and would come and go over the next few months. It was not until the woman went through an airport metal detector and scanner did anyone realized that she still had a large surgical clamp in her chest.

6. Daryoush Mazarei had lower abdominal surgery and did not recover well afterwards. He complained to the doctors and hospital about severe pain, and was told at one point to see a psychiatrist because his pain was mental. After a CAT scan, a ten inch steel retractor was found lodged in his abdomen and surgically removed.

7. Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland faced a lawsuit because of several items left behind after her surgery. The woman had surgery for a benign tumor, and the surgeon left behind pieces of plastic, sponges, and gauze, which was discovered six years later. The woman’s complaints of pain had been brushed aside by the doctor and hospital in the time since the surgery.

8. One woman in New York had a broken surgical scissor blade left in her abdomen that was not discovered for sixteen months after the surgery. The blade was accidently discovered after a car accident when the woman was given x-rays for a possible broken hip. The lawsuit was settled for one hundred thousand dollars.

9. At Jacobi Hospital in New York, a thirty eight year old woman had a cesarean section and surgeons left a laparotomy pad inside her abdomen. The mistake was discovered two years later when a sonogram was ordered for a pregnancy that the woman had. Surgery was required to remove the pad and this caused even more pain and scarring in her abdomen.

10. One surgical mistake which was settled for one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars involves a seventy two year old woman who had cardiac bypass surgery, and the surgeon left a surgical sponge behind her sternum which had to be surgically removed. This caused her to have an extended nine day hospital stay and extreme pain and suffering.

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.