An Army veteran from Connecticut has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, alleging that a VA surgeon left a scalpel inside his body during a surgery more than four years ago, according to WFSB television in Hartford.
Veteran Glenford Turner, now 61, allegedly discovered the left-behind scalpel when he was given an X-Ray following severe abdominal pains, WFSB reported. The surgical tool was reportedly removed during an April, 2017, surgery.
The knife was then identified as one used during a prostatectomy performed four years earlier at the West Haven VA hospital, according to the Hartford station.
“It is shocking that in return for that service the VA thanked him by deploying a rookie surgical trainee to perform the surgery who showed an incomprehensible level of incompetence by losing the scalpel in Mr. Turner’s abdomen and not bothering to find it,” New Haven attorney Joel T. Faxon, representing Turner, said in a Monday statement, according to WFSB. “The VA’s low standard of care has been the subject of much discussion lately, but this is a new low. … They should be ashamed of themselves.”
The VA said Monday it doesn’t typically comment on pending litigation, according to the Associated Press.
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