The surgeon was not prepared for my sedative needs, did not listen to my request of what to give me, and because I was holding up the Endoscopic Unit, he called for an anesthesiologist I had never met. He never asked a single question, nor did he check out my charts. He simply injected me with Propofol, without the Lidocaine to ease the pain. I was in hell, and then out for a quick intubation. As a heart patient with all the symptoms from that, I should not have had Propofol. I woke up coughing my guts and lungs up as they extubated me. I was on the other side of the hospital in the main recovery area. Neither doctor came to tell me what happened and what might happen later.
I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. I arrived at the hospital alert but with a dislocated hip and a fractured ankle. At the time of treatment I was told they needed x-rays and I would be getting something for pain.
I received the wrong dosage of Lupron Depot after my shot was sent to the wrong doctor’s office. The nurse said they had an extra one on-site and gave me that one instead. I asked her if it was the 3.75 dose before she gave it to me, and she said yes. After the nurse gave me the shot, she realized it was the wrong dose and was actually the 11.25 shot…
In 2003, my wife, Lisa, age 42, an insulin-dependent diabetic, collapsed into a coma while in a hospital. At the time she was discovered she had no pulse and was not breathing and her blood glucose level was almost non-existent at 2mg/dL.
For two years (2006-2008) I was in the ER repeatedly with vomiting, pain, etc. I saw a physician in their facility on an outpatient basis. I eventually suffered arrhythmias, multiple episodes of aspiration pneumonia, and was even referred to psychiatric help.
At an ambulatory center I had surgery from a podiatrist/surgeon on the right big toe—because of arthritis, it turns out. She crippled me; because the surgery was not successful, she did a redo resulting in the partial amputation of the large toe, making it about one and a half inches shorter than it was before the first of 2 surgeries. During the second operation I woke up and could feel that I was being stitched up, and I cried out. I was then given more medication to keep me sedated until she was finished, ruining my foot and causing me to have a reduced quality of life for the last 9 years.
After undergoing a carotid endarterectomy, I began seeing double. I phoned my surgeon and he told me to get an eye patch. What he should have done was tell me to get to the hospital STAT
On November 14, 2003, I suffered two brainstem strokes after having an upper neck manipulation. Initially, I lost speech, feeling in my right side, had a facial droop and slurred speech. When admitted to the stroke center, I found out that this is a known risk of chiropractic upper neck manipulations.
The doctor was supposed to be replacing a stomach feeding tube (goes through the stomach wall, for people who can’t chew/swallow properly). He didn’t understand the procedure for removing the old tube, got frustrated, and ripped it out by force.
In 1976 I had my back operated on (because I had a ruptured disk) and the doctor fused my back wrong. In 1978, a neurologist tried to fix it, but the damage was too extensive. I have had chronic pain every since.
I had spinal decompression, laminectomy and 3 level lumbar fusion, performed by 2 neurosurgeons at the largest hospital in my state. Four days after discharge to my home 75 miles away, I started to have a fever and pus discharge from main incision. I was admitted to local hospital which did appropriate cultures, finding that I had M.R.S.A, a potentially deadly infection.
My pregnancy was completely normal and everything seemed perfect. Charlee was my husband’s only child and his pride and joy.
In November 2006, following a medical procedure, I came down with a 104 fever with an extreme headache. Informing the doctor of my symptoms, I was told I had probably caught a ‘flu bug’ and to wait it out until my post-op appointment two weeks later.
John McCleary, my father, was admitted to the hospital on September 26, 2008 with a minor fracture of his ankle. He was in that 25 bed hospital for 12 days for rehabilitation and discharged in good condition on October 5.
My father received the hip surgery in the beginning of November 2007. The doctor was only going to repair the old replaced hip. As it was, he replaced the hip and the doctor used shorter screws and the ball fell out, but the doctor and staff never brought my Dad to x-ray to follow up because he is old.
In February 2008, I had pain in my right flank area that lasted in the same spot all night. Thinking it could be a kidney stone, I went to the ER the next morning and they checked my urine and did a CT scan.
I had a cyst operation in April, 2008. I was given pre-op antibiotics. In May I started to feel horrible. I got a fever, was throwing up and had chronic diarrhea. I called my sister who is a nurse and she looked up my symptoms and told me she thought I had C-Diff. I had an appointment with the surgeon and told him what was happening. I also told him I thought I had C-Diff.
On November 22, 2007 my mother was rushed to the ER of a Pennsylvania hospital where she was diagnosed with a severe bacterial infection caused by Clostridium Difficile. She had been exhibiting symptoms of this infection for several days prior, which was left untreated. Her symptoms included persistent diarrhea, a high fever and abnormally high white blood cell count. After being diagnosed with this infection it was suggested that she undergo emergency surgery to remove the “infected and diseased†parts of her colon. It was explained to us that it was her only chance of survival. She underwent surgery the next morning. Unfortunately, the surgery was not successful in controlling the spread of the infection, as that it had infected other parts of her body. Sadly, she died from this infection the early morning of November 24, 2007.
After Michael Skolnik passed out in September 2001, his neurosurgeon told his parents that Michael needed to have brain surgery within two days. The three hour operation lasted six hours with no cyst ever being found. This marked the beginning of a 32-month nightmare of brain surgeries, infections, and more than $4,000,000 in medical bills.
In May of 2006 I was involved in a motorcycle accident and taken to a Sacramento hospital for treatment. I had sustained a fracture to my right ankle. When I left the hospital the wound would not heal. After taking lab tests it was determined that I had a staph infection that required a debridement surgery. (It turned out to be two surgeries).
In January 2007 I underwent cabx5, an aneurysm repair in left ventricle of my heart, where a bi-ventricular pacemaker was inserted. According to my medical records, my doctor found the aneurysm in the left ventricle in 2004, and in 2005 in the stress test, and never told me about it. I am permanently disabled.
My mother had hip surgery during which the doctor, unbeknownst to my mother or her rehab crew, severed a nerve. After several months of my mother not getting the mobility or correct walking gait back, the doctor insisted it would only take more rehab.
My mother had hip surgery during which the doctor, unbeknownst to my mother or her rehab crew, severed a nerve. After several months of my mother not getting the mobility or correct walking gait back, the doctor insisted it would only take more rehab.
The surgeon in California, who originally did a hip replacement on my right hip, used a laser to assure that both my legs were the same length. When the liner broke (13 years later), the orthopedic surgeon replaced the ball with a larger ball. This resulted in my right leg (where hip replacement was) being longer than left leg. I now limp because the left leg is approximately 3/4″ shorter.
My family experienced a surgical error in 2007. We filed a complaint with the state department of public health over this incident. In the single issue of exposing an IgE latex allergic patient to a medical device containing latex, it should have been very easy for DPH to find that the surgeon and hospital provided our daughter with negligent care. The device was clearly labeled as containing latex, the hospital and surgeon identified our daughter, Kelly, as a latex allergic patient before surgery, standard of care at the hospital was the strict avoidance of all latex products in an surgical/medical procedure for an identified latex allergic patient, and the Informed Consent for this procedure does not give the hospital or surgeon permission to treat our daughter with a medical device containing latex.
My defibrillator fired fifteen times until I finally told them to turn it off. I said my goodbyes to my wife and told her I loved her, thinking it was over for me. The shocks stopped and nothing happened, much to my surprise, as I thought I would die. I later found that nine of the fifteen shocks were not programmed.
On February of 2010, my father, at the age of 89, was admitted to a hospital in Washington for an evaluation because he started showing signs of slight confusion. At his admission, he was in a fairly good state of health. He did not have any serious life threatening illness. However, he suddenly died at the hospital on the 5th day of his admission
On June 9, 2008, my brother, Kenneth Novak died due to the terrible mistake of two anesthesiologists at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, FL. While central lines were being placed into his internal jugular vein to prepare for a liver transplant, the catheter/needle was advanced too far, perforating both the jugular and right subclavian artery. My brother bled to death.
On September 30 of 1991, a simple forceps biopsy was performed (in my chest of a massive 13cm tumor) to diagnose, and/or grade and stage Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A surgical accident occured during this biopsy
In 2008, my Dad was in a local hospital where he was given a sulfa medication, despite the fact that he was wearing a red wrist band warning about his well-documented life-threatening sulfa allergy, and despite that many medical references do not support this off-label use of the drug in my Dad’s medical condition. Furthermore, without an emergency, the doctor and the nurses never informed my Dad or me (his medical power of attorney at the hospital 24/7) about the drug being a sulfa drug, or any of its risks. We even repeatedly asked the doctor about the drug risks before its administration. Yet the doctor withheld all this critical drug information, and lied about the drug risks (which turned out to be significant to my Dad). We later learned that there was also a plan to monitor my Dad after the first dose to watch for an anaphylactic drug reaction. But no one told us anything about this monitoring plan, even after my Dad showed signs of a serious drug reaction.
On November 14, 2003, I suffered two brainstem strokes after having an upper neck manipulation. Initially, I lost speech, feeling in my right side, had a facial droop and slurred speech. When admitted to the stroke center, I found out that this is a known risk of chiropractic upper neck manipulations.
In 1976 I had my back operated on (because I had a ruptured disk) and the doctor fused my back wrong. In 1978, a neurologist tried to fix it, but the damage was too extensive. I have had chronic pain every since.
My mother had hip surgery during which the doctor, unbeknownst to my mother or her rehab crew, severed a nerve. After several months of my mother not getting the mobility or correct walking gait back, the doctor insisted it would only take more rehab.
Podiatrist A negligently severed a tendon in my toe while removing a bone spur, causing the toe to rotate. Podiatrist B only performed half of the operation necessary to repair it, causing the condition to worsen. Hopefully, Podiatrist C has been successful, but the jury is still out.
In 2006, I was having a Medtronic morphine pump put into my body and the catheter placed into my spinal column. The surgery proceeded well until the surgeon asked the anesthesiologist to give me a shot of antibiotic. The anesthesiologist gave me another dose of the paralytic agent instead of the antibiotic. This caused me to stop breathing and to wake up during the surgery.
Beginning in 1994, my wife Betty LeBlanc was misdiagnosed for more than four years with fibromyalgia. Because we have no approved accurate laboratory test for Lyme disease my wife and thousands like her have been and continue to be misdiagnosed.
The Safe Patient Project is a Consumers Union campaign focused on eliminating medical harm, improving FDA oversight of prescription drugs and promoting disclosure laws that give information to consumers about health care safety and quality.
