Astounding result in horrible surgical error case

On Behalf of | May 22, 2014 | Surgical Errors

What if a terrible surgical error changed your life in almost every conceivable way? What if a surgeon’s mistake caused you to lose limbs, and lose certain senses, and to endure serious medical conditions that were literally heart-stopping?

Wouldn’t you do everything in your power to hold the people involved in your botched procedure responsible? Wouldn’t you seek every penny possible to help you deal with the extensive and massive medical bills you’ve accrued since the incident, and will accrue in the years to come?

Sadly, these circumstances are true for one 33-year-old woman who had her life turned upside down after she went into a hospital for surgery in 2009. The procedure she was getting — a gynecological procedure known as laparoscopic surgery — went terribly wrong after a surgeon punctured the woman’s colon. As a result of this error, the woman went through a bevy of terrible medical conditions. Her heart stopped three times in the wake of the surgical error. Though she survived this ordeal, doctors had to amputate both of her legs at the knee and she lost a portion of her hearing.

Life will never be the same for this woman. In fact, it’s only getting harder. “Life is hard for me and gets more and more difficult as time goes by,” she recently said.

If there’s any good news to come out of this story, it is that the woman’s medical malpractice lawsuit ended in her favor, as a $62 million judgment was handed down. The hospital where the woman had the procedure and three doctors appealed the ruling — and were rebuffed.

Source: New York Daily News, “Judge upholds $62 million verdict awarded to Brooklyn mom who lost her legs in botched hospital procedure,” John Marzulli, May 12, 2014

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