A man who went in for a routine knee surgery needed his leg amputated after an alleged blunder by doctors.
Wayne Wolff, 57, went to UC Irvine Medical Center for meniscus surgery to repair a torn meniscus, a crescent-shaped piece of cartilage in the knee joint.
But during the operation in April last year, it is alleged the surgeon accidentally severed an artery which cut off blood supply to his limb.
For days after the surgery, Mr Wolff was in excruciating pain as his leg began to die and rot.
To avoid an infection spreading from the dying tissue to the rest of his body, his leg was amputated below the knee.
The case was revealed in a lawsuit filed in California’s Orange County Superior Court, with the couple suing the hospital’s administrator, UC regents.
Wolff is seeking an undisclosed sum for abuse and neglect, negligence, loss of consortium and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Wayne Wolff, 57, had his left leg amputated below the knee after an alleged botched surgery
Mr Wolff is pictured above in the hospital following the surgery
His attorney, Jeoffrey Robinson, told the LA Times: ‘We look forward to adjudicating this matter in a public forum.
‘ This scenario should never happen to anyone ever again.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to Wang and UC Irvine Medical Center for comment.
Mr Wolff, an electrician from Riverside County, went for the surgery after tearing his medial meniscus, a C-shaped piece of cartilage that supports and stabilizes the knee joint. He also had mild knee arthritis.
Meniscus surgery is carried out on about 850,000 patients in the US every year, and normally involves using small incisions and a camera to stitch the meniscus back together to help it heal more rapidly in cases where it has torn.
Doctors said that he had a blood clot in the main artery supplying blood to his lower leg, which led to tissue death
During his surgery on April 3 last year, the lawsuit alleges that Mr Wolff’s surgeon, Dr Dean Wang accidentally cut the popliteal artery that supplies blood to the knee and lower leg.
The lawsuit states Wang told the patient he had ‘nicked’ a blood vessel during the procedure but that it was nothing to worry about.
In reality, it took 35 minutes to stem the bleeding, and Mr Wolff lost about a liter of blood, the suit said.
Mr Wolff was in constant pain after the surgery, which nurses could not ease despite increasing doses of fentanyl, oxycodone and other painkillers.
Doctors who examined Mr Wolff that evening noted concerns that they could not find a pulse in his left foot – a sign the blood flow had been blocked.
On April 5 at 12.42pm, two days after the surgery, the hospital ordered an ultrasound — but the test was canceled by Wang at 1.10pm, the lawsuit said.
On April 6, Wang returned to the hospital from a conference and brought Mr Wolff back into the operating room to examine the leg.
After the examination, Wang told Ms Wolff that her husband had developed a blood clot in his popliteal artery and that amputation might be necessary, according to the the suit.
Mr Wolff is pictured above with his wife Lisa, a former trauma room nurse. She repeatedly asked doctors for a CT scan after her husband was in extreme pain following the surgery
His surgeon was Dr Dean Wang, pictured, who is the head of the hospital’s sports medicine unit
On the same day, vascular surgeon Dr Samuel Chen performed a procedure to restore blood flow to the lower part of the leg.
Dr Chen told Ms Wolff that her husband’s lower leg was ischemic, or the tissue had been damaged by reduced blood flow, that he said had been caused by Wang’s cauterization of the popliteal artery.
Three days later, Wang performed surgery on the leg to check for signs of recovery with the restored blood flow — but he only found necrosis, or tissue death.
Ms Wolff asked Wang repeatedly why he canceled the ultrasound authorized by Sharma and why he never ordered tests to determine why her husband had no pulse, the lawsuit states. But Wang answered with the same phrase: ‘I don’t know.’
Doctors took the decision to amputate the lower part of the patient’s leg, which was done on April 14 last year.
