A Washington state man who went to the emergency room with abdominal pain is suing a hospital and two doctors, claiming that surgeons removed the wrong organ from his body during surgery.
Lake Forest Park resident George Piano and his wife, Elizabeth Piano, filed the medical malpractice suit on Nov. 2. King County Superior Court Court records have come to light following allegations of a botched surgery on December 6th.
The 13-page lawsuit is called University of Washington The medical center and two university surgeons, Nidhi Udhyavar and Paul Herman, are defendants in the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, George Piano went to the hospital’s emergency room on Dec. 6 with abdominal pain, was diagnosed with appendicitis, and was taken to the operating room where doctors removed his appendix.
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“The contents of my intestines started spilling out.”
But during the surgery, doctors were unable to locate the patient’s appendix and instead removed part of his intestine, according to the lawsuit.
“After the surgery, Mr. Piano began experiencing abdominal pain that was worse than before the surgery,” attorneys Ed Moore and Van Shaw said in a press release. “Intestinal contents began spilling into his abdominal cavity and his condition worsened further.”
Two days later, Piano was informed that a CT scan revealed that her appendix had not been removed during surgery, the statement said. On December 8, Piano returned to the same hospital for surgery, where doctors removed her appendix.
According to the suit, doctors removed part of the diverticulitis in Piano’s lower colon instead of her appendix, allowing her to repair her “leaky colon” and deal with an abdominal infection caused by the Dec. 6 surgery. He said he needed another surgery.
“It’s been a hell of a year,” Piano told USA TODAY on Tuesday. “I’m not the same person I was when this started.”
“When I woke up and came off the medication, I was in terrible pain. It was much worse than when I went to the hospital,” he said.
Piano said she spent 53 days in the hospital last year, lost about 40 pounds, has anxiety and suffers from short-term memory loss due to a suspected medical incident.
He said he and his wife didn’t want to sue, but decided to do so “because the hospital didn’t respond.”
“I feel very lucky to still be alive,” he said. “We didn’t want something like this to happen to anyone else. Someone needs to stop this, take responsibility and say this happened and we want it to never happen again.” We need to take steps to prevent this from happening.”
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“The best possible care”
Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for the University of Washington School of Medicine, said the hospital cannot comment on pending litigation, but issued the following statement to USA TODAY on Tuesday:
“UW Medicine strives to provide the best possible care to all of our patients, and their safety and well-being is extremely important to us.”
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and requests a jury trial.
Natalie Neisa Alland is a senior reporter at USA TODAY. Contact her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her at X @nataliealund.