Posted on 07/20/2009 9:08:36 AM PDT by rawhide
A Texas Airman stationed at an Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif. has lost both legs after surgeons reportedly botched a routine surgery to remove his gallbladder.
Colton Read, 20, underwent laproscopic surgery last week at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento. Laproscopic surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that involves making a tiny incision to minimize pain and speed recovery time.
About an hour into the surgery, something went wrong. Read's wife Jessica told CBS11TV.com.
"A nurse runs out, 'we need blood now' and she rounds the corner and my gut feelings is 'oh my God, is that my husband?'" Jessica Read said. Read's wife said an Air Force general surgeon mistakenly cut her husband's aortic valve, which supplies blood to the heart, but waited hours to transport Colton Read to a state hospital with a vascular surgeon.
Read, who is still in intensive care, lost both legs as a result of the blood loss. Meanwhile, his gallbladder still has not been removed. Jessica Read said the doctor admitted his mistake, but under federal law the Reads cannot sue.
Jessica Read told FOX 40 she is appalled that the Air Force is even considering medical retirement or medical discharge while Airman Read is incapable of making any type of decision. She said he is not 100 percent lucid and is still heavily medicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Tragic. So awful.
Do they mean his Aorta? How the heck did they get into the mediastinum to mess up a heart valve?
AV
Military health care, a preview of 0bamacare.
nully, who was raised under Marine Corps medical care.
Sometimes that free health care is worth every cent you pay for it.
I’m curious to know why the doctors felt it necessary to remove the gall-bladder of such a young man.
I cannot think of any reason why this doctor would be in the circulatory system anyways. I could maybe see he nicked the abdominal aorta and as a result any major vessels below it were robbed of blood. I am not a doctor but this is my best opinion based on basic human anatomy.
He can’t sue, but they have some fiduciary responsibility, right? Right?
Standard Govt.-run military medicine...likely a young, inexperienced doctor with a scalpel in hand...good chance an affirmative action type...welcome to Comrade Obama's vision for everyone (except, of course, elitist scum such as himself).
“......under federal law the Reads cannot sue”
My recollection of the rules is that he can sue if the Fed government allows itself to be sued.
Other than that, the fiduciary responsibility does not extend beyond the medical retirement pension.
We here in our little town of 5,000 were soooo fortunate to have a world class surgeon for 20 years. He taught laparoscopic surgery by national hookup. When he left to take over dept. head in minimally invasive surgery at a major medical school, he personally found a qualified replacement for himself.
If it is not an emergency, never let any surgeon cut on you without knowing his qualifications.
vaudine
Probably not beyond normal retirement for honorable discharge and some (minimal) disability pay.
I was having some gall bladder troubles a couple of years back. The Doctors never for a second considered anything else but immediate surgery as “there’s nothing else to be done”. Unwilling to accept this I went to a Chinese herbalist who put me on some powders and the problem went away in a couple of months. He also cured by wife’s years long battle with chronic heartburn and stronger and stronger prescription antacids... also in a couple of months.
Now I only go to medical doctors as a last resort. All they know is drug and cut.
What a messed up situation. I feel for that guy and hope his wife honors her vows in the years to come.
This the type of care we all fear from a sloppy, indifferent gov system.
My daughter’s was removed when she was 25 after 4 trips to the emergency room in a few months. The bile can back up into the liver and cause more problems.
My sons Mother in law’s brother bleed to death internally ... following such surgery in Okla. City last fall.
He was taken back to his room, and they did not respond to loss of blood pressure ... thinking the cuff was malfunctioning.
His son was/is a Doctor in the same hospital ... he was not there at the time of the surgery. He refused suing under the circumstances. However, it was an blatant mistake by the nurse(in training) waiting before calling for help ... too late. His wife was present and beside herself by the inaction. No blood pressure wass a vital sign ... she was talking to him ... moments before.
Under obamacare he would have been killed, not able to perform his assigned duties and a burden to the government health care system.
What a terrible thing to happen to this young man.
Prayers up.
That is what I was thinking, did the doctor think he was operating on a vulcan?????
I’m surprised that his kidney’s still work. Aortic clamping can only be done for a few minutes without killing both kidneys.
I was raised on military healthcare until I turned 18. My mom was a nurse and she said there were some good and some bad doctors. She insists that she darn near kicked an Air Force doctor’s *ss in 1954 and made them do something when I was sick or I would have died.
parsy, who feels so sorry for this Airman
WHAT?! I had laparoscopic gall bladder surgery in April, and the entire procedure, from beginning to end, lasted 45 minutes. What the hell was this guy waiting for?
And apart from everything else why would the AF consider mandatory retirement? I thought that these days amputees are,at least in certain circumstances,being allowed to continue service if they wish.
That’s what I was wondering. But the info about the valve comes from the poor wife, who is young and under tremendous stress so it’s probably just a mistake. Still, they really botched up a gall bladder removal to do this to the poor young man. Lap surgery at that. Prayers for the young man and his wife.
I can't imagine how this would have happened. The Aortic is pretty deep. He must have somehow just shoved a trocar or instrument way deep for some unknown tragically wrong reason. Even years down the road they can't sue. I was on a case where we removed a lap left in years ago at Walter Reed.
If you ever want to see a person treated like a piece of meat experience military medicine for non-battlefield procedures.
The USAF surgeons consider these people as “assets” and their “mission” is to return them to service as quickly as possible or to discharge them as spoiled goods.
Family members are often treated rudely and excluded from decisions.
My experience is that if you want to experience anything looking like civilized medicine you have to be a perfect bully and that has hazards.
-—likely a young, inexperienced doctor-—
I work for the VA...more likely a H-1B doctor....
Good point.
I work in the medical malpractice industry, insuring about 400 physicians.
They flea private practice if they can get into the VA system. The perks are good and law suits aren’t a constant worry. There are some good docs in the VA system but some go there because they can’t be insured elsewhere (due to law suits).
But then, there are some bad ones in the private sector too.
Shades of “King’s Row”.
Yikes. Did you see this?
The weird thing about this story is that it was laproscopic - very low risk, at least lower than “usual” surgery. Very tragic.
Don’t ask.
And note that this airman CANNOT sue for malpractise. Welcome to Obamacare at its very finest!
To clip the aortic valve while doing a laperoscopy for gall bladder surgery is pretty unusual. Iam wondering if the “general surgeon” really is some hack that hasn;’t done many (any?) of these. It is a skill that requires a fair amount of practise.
That would make a great tag line !
OH MY GOSH..the guy is 20 years old...he has his whole life ahead of him...what a tragedy.
They must mean the abdominal aorta? Trocar is inserted in the abdomen —> hits abdominal aorta —> hemorrhage?
And if your gall bladder had become gangrenous while waiting for your herbs to cure you, the tale would be entirely different. Glad you only had stones and were not fully blocked. IF you had been packed with stones, the pain would have been sufficient that you would not have been able to wait to get to your herbalist. You would have been doubled over, sweating like a pig, and near organ shut down. Not something to mess with
That was my thought also.
Who studied anatomy on a dog, in a Quonset Hut deep in the Third World.
Something must have gotten miscommunicated somewhere along the line, but you’d think Fox would have some editors around who took introductory biology and remember the basics. The article says the surgeon “cut her husband’s aortic valve, which supplies blood to the heart”. The aortic valve is where blood *exits* the heart, and cutting the valve wouldn’t result in blood loss, though it would certainly result in major loss of blood *pressure* and in poorly oxygenated blood, as a lot of blood pumped out of the left ventricle to the aorta would flow backwards into the ventricle, preventing the ventricle from filling up with newly oxygenated blood arriving from the lungs through the left atrium. As the first branches off the aorta, just after the aortic valve, the coronary arteries (which are what supply the heart muscle with oxygenated blood) would be first in line to get blood.
However, to get to the aortic valve, the surgeon would have to have first cut through either the aorta or the left ventricle — if it was the aorta (which is more likely, since the ventricle would be awfully tough to cut through by accident), it’s a miracle the guy is still alive at all. This would be comparable to rupturing an aortic aneurysm, which is one of the surest routes to immediate death, even if you’re already in the hospital and in the process of being treated.
Yeah, doc, whatever you say. Sorry I threatened your income lines.
You mean Navy medical care??? heeheehee
The military member cannot sue the govt
And I think SHE might be able to sue. . .
We had a preemie (25 weeker) >22 years ago and he had bilateral inguinal hernias. The Navy insisted on their dr, with some pediatric experience, doing the surgery. His pediatrician insisted on a specialist because of his extreme prematurity and very small size. She won, thank God! He’s a healthy 22 yo sailor today. (yayyyyy)
Yep. It would have been nice to get a story that made sense.
Ever had a gallstone? Boy howdy, dropped me like a rock.
My gallbladder was hurting me badly, so, lapo for me and I was out that very day (Andrews AFB, MD). The docs were great, the nursing care post-op, not so much so. . .pushing us out the door as soon as they could.
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