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 ...
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
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