Woman Loses Legs and Arms From Infection After Hysterectomy

Severe medical malpractice during and following a hysterectomy in a California hospital caused a 48-year-old mother of two to lose major portions of both arms and both legs, rendering her a quadriplegic. She is now bedridden, requiring constant care, and unable to take care of her 13-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter.

When she entered the hospital to remove a growth on her uterus, she did not expect such a life-altering result. She was assured that the growth was not cancerous. Two doctors placed a camera and various surgical instruments through her skin into her abdominal cavity, making a number of tiny cuts to accomplish that and enable them to carry out laparoscopic surgery. While they died this, the carelessly created a tear in a portion of her colon, and failed to realize it.

As a result, when the operation was completed, they closed her up and failed to realize that the opening in her colon was still present, allowing fecal matter to leak out uncontrollably. Subsequently, while ostensibly recovering from the normal effects of the operation, she started to exhibit a very low production of urine, as well as blood pressure registering below normal and a heartbeat racing at breakneck speed.

Instead of realizing that these vital signs indicated the start of a massive infection, one of the doctors thought she was just experiencing to be expected abdominal pain and ordered that she simply be provided with some pain medication. Unfortunately, he also decided to order that she be given an enema. Given the hole in her colon, this was the last thing she needed, as the quantity of fecal matter leaking in her body was greatly increased.

It took a full 48 hours before the real problem was uncovered when the woman underwent a CT scan, whereupon the torn bowel was discovered. Emergency surgery was scheduled and medication was also administered to try to raise her still low blood pressure. This did not adequately reverse the problem. Gangrene started to appear on her limbs. Ultimately, she was taken to another hospital. Once there, doctors had little choice but amputating a part of both her legs and her arms, to prevent the gangrene from spreading and threatening her very life.

A beautiful and active wife and mother was disfigured and disabled, suffering the amputation of both of her feet and a portion of her legs above the ankles. Doctors had to take off her left hand and a part of her left arm above her wrist, as well as her right hand and all of her right arm to above the elbow.

Unable to work, and unable to actively take care of her home and family, she has had to suffer through several subsequent operations to try to make the best of an utterly horrible situation while needing constant help in doing the most ordinary everyday tasks such as using the bathroom, eating, cleaning and dressing herself. The impact on her husband and two little children has also been devastating. Her plight has rightfully become the subject of a medical malpractice lawsuit, in which she and her family should receive compensation for their suffering, although no amount of money can ever really be adequate to make up for how negligence by the hospital and doctors have ruined their once happy lives.