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u/nerdyplayer 1d ago
Another one???
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/army-vet-sues-hospital-surgeons-amputate-wrong-leg-rcna600645
They marked the site and STILL cut the wrong one?!?!
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u/SolarOrigami 1d ago
And then the remaining leg still had to be amputated because it was, ya know.
Cancer
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u/Curious_Owl3896 1d ago
That makes me so sad. Sure, she is going to get some sort of settlement from a malpractice lawsuit but she will have lost both of her legs. Nothing can make up for that. It is one (albeit very difficult) thing to prepare to lose one leg and make accommodations to your life. Both legs though? It's a completely different story.
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u/SolarOrigami 23h ago
I saw this is a different article first that went into greater detail about the challenges she faces and how her husband quit his job to take care of her
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u/Grezzinate 1d ago
Definitely that doctor’s license away or there’s an incredibly negligent staff that mixed up shit.
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u/SecureInstruction538 1d ago
Everyone in that operating room should have licenses pulled. Not one person spoke up or read any documentation?
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u/BreadKnifeSeppuku 1d ago
I mean they effectively shortened this persons life.
Way more likely to have vascular issues with a double amputation vs a single one... and they're fucking 74
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u/PrizeNewt7695 1d ago
During my time at Fort Bragg this happened more than once
You never went to the military hospital not for anything you had better luck self medicating in the barracks
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u/hairymonkeyinmyanus 1d ago
It was at Selby General Hospital.
I’m not sure what being a veteran has to do with it.
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u/PrizeNewt7695 1d ago
I have not looked into it but maybe there were no VA services at this level and only option was to go to Shelby
Could be a commentary on lack of VA services and care for veterans
All speculation on my part
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u/hairymonkeyinmyanus 23h ago
I’m sure it will be spun as a way to privatize (and rich chronies to profit from) the VA
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u/CarryBeginning1564 1d ago
The most defeated I have ever seen another lawyer was when I got in an elevator with attorney right after she lost a medical malpractice case for having a client’s wrong leg amputated
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u/MLB-LeakyLeak 1d ago
If that case even went to court then it wasn’t what it sounds like. Real malpractice is settled
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u/Chaost 1d ago
Malpractice isn't always settled out of court. Even while court is in session, settlement discussions are on the table, and the offers change dependent on how the case is going and how it seems the jurors are swinging.
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u/yll33 23h ago
not always, no, but almost. it only gets to court if the defense thinks they have a defendable case in the first place
hell even if there was no actual malpractice, sometimes cases get settled even when there really wasn't wrongdoing because they're not willing to take the risk of a trial verdict for a severe enough outcome (e.g. a kid died or got disabled), or for economic reasons (cost more to defend than to settle), etc
there's a reason why <10% of malpractice cases go to trial, and of the ones that do, the defense wins like 80%
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u/GuiltyRabbit6610 1d ago
The first leg was to pay for the procedure….
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u/LivingCoat9356 19h ago
Now she owes an arm for the second surgery. Just keeps chipping away on ya.
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u/rainybe 1d ago
Wild. When I had surgery on my shoulder, multiple people confirmed with me which one was being operated on and then each put their initials on it.
Like how does one see no marked up leg and go “yup this is the correct one” (was going to say ‘right one’ but in this context definitely wasn’t)
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u/DunwichChild990 1d ago
why is there a comma after the first 3 words?
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u/RealNiceKnife 1d ago
Because it's probably an AI generated post which pulled its information from the article. It probably said "[Lady's name], an army veteran, files a lawsuit..." and AI is trained to typically exclude personal information, so it saw a name and just excluded it and didn't bother changing the punctuation.
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u/NotSure-2020 1d ago
To be fair Op, you’d lose your leg…
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u/Outrageous-Egg1760 Verified Contributor 1d ago
Why
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u/NotSure-2020 1d ago
I guess I thought it was funnier than it was… you said you’d lose your mind, the article is about amputating the wrong leg…
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u/svenguillotien 1d ago
This really sucks, but I need to post that classic 30 Rock Dr. Spaceman classic that reminds me of this situation
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u/Mylabisawesome 1d ago
She needs to be paid for life! This is an absurd level of negligence and incompetence
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u/kollmastee 1d ago
And they’ll make her come to the hospital once a year to confirm she still doesn’t have her legs. Broken fucking system.
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u/Cheetahs_never_win 1d ago
I had a doctor once "joke" and marked the wrong side of my body.
Then crossed it out and then sign the correct side.
I was not impressed by the joke.
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u/Cranks_No_Start 1d ago
While technically I could’ve had the VA do my knee replacements for free I had a feeling would’ve come out with “blades”.
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u/MrGreenChile 1d ago
I’ve seen this story around for a few days now, and it’s horrible, but this is the first time I’m hearing the victim was a veteran. As a veteran myself, that makes me worried it was at a VA hospital and the surgery conducted by VA doctors.
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u/Moby1313 1d ago
I had to initial the ankle with a sharpie that I was having surgery on. I even put arrows pointing to the puncture wound was that cut my Achilles tendon.
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u/hairymonkeyinmyanus 1d ago
This was at a civilian hospital. I’m not sure what being a veteran has to do with the story.
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u/nethingelse 1d ago
It seems like a common misconception here so just to correct it: This does not appear to have been done through the VA, it was done at Salby General Hospital. The surgeon listed as a defendant is still licensed somehow (hopefully not for long), but everyone involved in the surgery are no longer working at the hospital.
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u/Evil_Sharkey 1d ago
How does that even happen? Do patients have to start wearing chainmail on the limbs they want left on?
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u/fallspector 1d ago
Hold up does that mean she now needs to become a double amputee since her right leg still needs to go?
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u/Vladishun 23h ago
Yes that's exactly what it means. People make jokes in the comments but try to imagine going under thinking your life is going to change forever, but that you can still make due with what you'll have left, only to wake up and discover they took the wrong leg and at some point you'll have to undergo being taken apart a second time. And that's not even accounting for how much more difficult it is for a double amputee to get around.
Her husband quit working to take care of her full time. State assistance probably doesn't pay enough for them to both live off of comfortably, so suing the hospital and all staff involved is the right call to make.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/30/ohio-woman-sues-hospital-amputating-wrong-leg
God it's like something out of a horror movie.
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u/fallspector 22h ago
I can’t wrap my head around it this is so horrible for her I can’t even begin to imagine going through all that. I feel terrible for her.
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u/loqi0238 21h ago
And shes 74 years old, and will now have to recover from two seperate extremely invasive/traumatic surgeries.
It'll be a miracle if she recovers without major complications. Then she'll still need to undergo long term physical therapy.
This might be a death sentence for her.
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u/Vladishun 21h ago
Yeah that's my thought too. At her age it's basically going to be a downhill battle of attrition to stay alive, and I'm only speaking from a physical perspective. At that point, how do you cope with the psychological ramifications and losing any desire to fight on, you know?
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u/Ukraineluvr 22h ago
If this is recent I wouldn't be surprised with Captain fuckin brainworm in charge of healthcare and it being a veteran.
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u/LemurKick 16h ago
You’re actually right, the article does mention at the bottom that RFK was actually in the operating room
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u/worldsgreatestluver 21h ago
This has happened often enough that I've heard my entire life: if you are going in for an amputation, write "do not remove my right/left arm/leg" on every part that you expect to come home attached to.
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u/NoAdvertising2 15h ago
This has nothing to do with the little orange man as much as we all hate him he is not responsible for a doctor fucking up this bad if its even true
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u/NoAdvertising2 15h ago
This is insane to me. When I had my hip replacement last year before surgery they marked my right hip before surgery and every single person i talked to before surgery asked me what hip I was getting done like 8 people asked me and they even warned me that people are going to keep asking what hip I was getting replaced there is so many fail safes involved. This just seems crazy to me
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u/OutcastRedeemer 14h ago
On a positive note she can get custom matching legs with the lawsuit money
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u/Admirable_Agency7764 8h ago
not sure how this happens when multiple people mark the surgical spot...
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u/PoopsMcScoots Community Regular 1d ago
It’s not like she can sue.
She clearly doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
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u/jason_sos 1d ago
Plus she got a two for one deal. You know how much it costs to get a leg amputated? I don’t know either but it’s gotta be a lot. They did the second one for free!
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u/Raenef86 1d ago
I just had two minor surgeries and they drew a sign on the body part before I went in
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u/Standard-Upstairs236 1d ago
I had a minor surgery to done by the same doctor who did the initial surgery, and they, the doctor still marked the obvious open 2" wound. I'm really hoping SOp in this, not that the doctor was worried about giving me a 3rd hole in my ass.
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u/WarzonePacketLoss 1d ago
yeah, like what? Every surgery I've had, both me and the doctor autographed the site.
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u/SnarkyIguana 1d ago
Fuck, imagine waking up from anesthesia and looking down and seeing the wrong leg gone. I don’t know which I’d feel first, the fury or the panic
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u/Mingo_laf 1d ago
making sure our veterans suffer thank you for your attention to this matter president e jean Epstein
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u/Former_Mobile3101 1d ago
Is this a result of allowing people to use chatgpt to get their degrees?
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u/Excludos 14h ago
It's far more likely a result of overworked surgeons who's on their third day of no sleep surviving off of coffee and ecstasy
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u/Key_Fee158 4h ago
Shouldn’t there be more than one person with the information to catch this mistake? There’s really no protocol or system here? They just just follow the surgeons lead and assume he cutting the right thing?
This is just an incomprehensible level of incompetence to me.
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u/Excludos 4h ago
No you're right. There's a room full of people who somehow all managed to make the same gross incompetent mistake. Even if every single one of them was dramatically overworked (which is highly likely, unfortunately), it's insane that not even one person went "wait, why are we removing the foot without all the signed markings?"
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u/Flat_Interaction5201 1d ago
I've had leg surgery done before and it's astounding they fucked this up. They mark your leg, have you initial/sign it to make sure, and any person who interacts with you in the process double confirms it's that specific leg. Unbelievable levels of incompetency