Top 10 Shocking True Stories About Surgery Gone WRONG

Known primarily as an SNL comedian and for the role of Garth Algar in “Wayne’s World”, Dana Carvey made the news for altogether different and more concerning reasons in the late ‘90s. He
underwent major heart surgery to address a blocked artery but, during the operation at a California hospital, the surgeons mistakenly bypassed the wrong artery. As a result, the procedure did nothing. Carvey continued to experience the chest pain that he’d suffered beforehand, and so he required a second procedure to correct the mistake. After his clearly unnecessarily elongated recovery, Carvey filed a lawsuit and was reportedly awarded $7.5 million, which he donated to charity.

In 2002, Linda McDougal underwent a double mastectomy thinking that she had been diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. That diagnosis, though, was incorrect. The misdiagnosis occurred due to a reported mix-up in her medical records at United Hospital of St Paul, in Minnesota. Another patient's test results were mistakenly attributed to her, leading to her being the one who was operated on. Following the surgery, McDougal was informed that she’d never had cancer, and that the entire operation had been unnecessary.

Willie King went into surgery in Florida in 1995 for a leg amputation due to complications from diabetes. However, he woke up from the procedure to discover that the surgeons had taken the wrong leg. Upon investigation, it was found that the catastrophic error had occurred due to a series of miscommunications and failures in the pre-operative process. Multiple members of the hospital staff were implicated as the wrong leg was marked, prepped, and ultimately removed. Disciplinary actions included a lengthy ban for the lead surgeon, while King received a substantial settlement from the hospital, which admitted the mistake. But, again it goes down in history as a terrible case that prompted widespread reform in terms of checklists and protocol.

The bestselling author Olivia Goldsmith was renowned for her 1992 novel "The First Wives Club", which became the 1996 movie of the same name, starring Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton. Tragedy struck in 2004, however, when Goldsmith attended cosmetic surgery for a reported chin tuck. It should have been routine, but the writer suffered a severe adverse reaction to the anesthesia administered at the beginning, which caused her to lapse into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died shortly afterwards. At the time, her shocking death brought to light the inherent risks involved in even seemingly minor cosmetic surgeries.

In 1985, Bob East had recently retired from a long and distinguished career as a news photographer, notably for the Miami Herald. Unfortunately he’d been diagnosed with corneal cancer, which made it necessary to remove one of his eyes. East would ultimately lose his life through the operation, though, due to a catastrophic mixup of chemicals in the operating room. Surgeons shot glutaraldehyde - a substance similar to the preservative formaldehyde - into East’s spine, believing that they were administering spinal fluid. The mistake caused the patient to fall into a coma, leaving him brain dead. His family opted to remove life support a few days later.

When, in 2001, 73-year old Arturo Iturralde entered Hilo Hospital in Hawaii with back pain, he likely trusted his doctors to help. But, in one of the most shocking cases of its kind, Iturralde’s surgeon, Robert Ricketson, knowingly inserted a broken screwdriver into his patient, instead. In subsequent trials for negligence, Ricketson reportedly claimed that he did so having realized mid-operation that he didn’t have the titanium rods he was supposed to attach to the spine. The makeshift screwdriver soon snapped, however, and Iturralde was forced to return for a long series of subsequent operations. But, he was ultimately paralyzed, and died two years later.

An endoscopy is generally a routine procedure. But, in 2014, the comedian and TV star Joan Rivers died as a result of undergoing one. She attended a New York clinic to have medical professionals examine her throat. But, within minutes of the surgery beginning, complications arose, Rivers stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. After some time she was resuscitated… but she had to be placed on life support and remained in a coma until, due to a lack of oxygen to her brain, she died six days later. An investigation revealed that unauthorized procedures were performed, and Rivers’ plummeting vital signs were missed. Her daughter, Melissa, took legal action against the clinic and doctors involved.

Jesica Santillan, a 17-year-old, received a heart and lung transplant at Duke University Hospital, North Carolina, in 2003. She would ultimately lose her life via the operation though, due to a massive error. The organs transplanted were of the wrong blood type and, as a result, Santillan suffered severe brain damage and died shortly after. Even efforts toward completing a second transplant couldn’t save her, as doctors reportedly realized the fatal mistake only at the end of completing the initial procedure. The tragedy was attributed to failures in the hospital's organ matching process and communication breakdowns among the medical team. Santillan's family filed a lawsuit which eventually resulted in a settlement, while the case spurred significant changes in transplant protocols with the aim of preventing similar mistakes.

In 2007, Donda West, mother of Kanye West, tragically died following complications from cosmetic surgery. West had reportedly had multiple procedures, performed by Dr. Jan Adams in Los Angeles, who (it was later found) had been involved in multiple malpractice cases previously in their career. Post-surgery, West became unwell and, despite emergency medical intervention, she passed away the next day. An autopsy revealed that she died from coronary artery disease as well as other postoperative factors. Kanye publicly mourned the loss of his mother, while what happened also directly led to the signing of the Donda West Law, in 2009 - to make it mandatory for everyone undergoing cosmetic surgery to receive the correct medical clearance beforehand.

If major surgery goes how it’s supposed to, then the patient should be entirely out and completely unaware of what’s happening to them. No pain or consciousness until they awake afterwards. But, what happened to Sherman Sizemore is many people’s worst nightmare. The 73-year old clergyman went under the knife in 2006 for an operation on his gallbladder. But it’s claimed that although paralyzing drugs were administered, general anesthesia wasn’t. Sizemore could reportedly feel everything that was happening to him, but couldn’t move or cry out to prevent it. Some of his surgeons at the time denied that the anesthesia was missed, and other theories are that the patient suffered from a broader phenomenon known as anesthesia awareness. However it happened, though, the trauma ultimately led Sizemore to take his own life.

Which of these cases are you most affected by? Let us know in the comments.