$260K Awarded to Man with Surgical Pad Left In his Body

Buffalo, NY: Justin Bartle has been awarded $260,000 as settlement of his lawsuit alleging that he suffered post-operative complications as a result of a surgical pad being left inside his body.

Bartle sued Buffalo's Sisters of Charity Hospital and an unaffiliated surgeon alleging that their failure to count the number of pads that the surgeon had used led to his postoperative infection.

Bartle had undergone surgerical resection of part of his bowel. He had to have a second surgery to remove the forgotten pad. The hospital blamed the surgeon who in turn blamed the attending nurses. The jury hearing the case assigned 65 percent of the blame to the surgeon and the remainder to the hospital, as employer of the nurses. It awarded damages of $260,121.