I recall waking up during the extraction of my wisdom teeth. I opened my eyes, heard the nurse say "he's coming back" and they put me back to sleep. Little did I know that I could have sued everyone in the room and lived the rest of my life sitting on a giant pile of money.
When they do extractions of wisdom teeth, it is usually done under "conscious sedation" and not general anesthesia. With conscious sedation, they usually give you an IV of valium, demerol, and phenobarbital + the local anesthetic to numb the area. With this type of anesthesia, the patient is often able to answer simple questions, but will usually have no memory of it afterward. Hardly anything to sue over.
yep - I had novacaine, pentathol and gas and was still conscious and talking (or trying to) throughout....I had impacted wisdom teeth and the moment he pulled it - my headache went away....
Ive never had another surgery since - except a colonoscopy - and I was awake for that too