72 Year Old Woman Dies from Complications of Unnecessary Surgery
This April our firm recovered $215,000 in a case of a 72 year old woman with pancreatic cancer who died as a result of complications from unneeded surgery. The case was settled just prior to jury selection and was to be tried by an attorney at WRS. The case involved a 72 year old woman who was having abdominal complaints and went in for a CT scan.
The CT was interpreted by her surgeon as showing signs "ovarian cysts" and he convinced the family our client needed surgery. During surgery it was found to be metastatic pancreatic cancer. The surgery took longer as expected. Our client suffered horrible post operative complications and expired. It was determined in investigating the case that the CT was absolutely misread and signs of metastatic disease were apparent. Our client should never have undergone surgery and should have only received palliative care for her cancer. Instead she suffered weeks of post surgical pain and suffering from a surgically damaged bowel, peritonitis, infection induced dementia and death.