Surgeon leaves towel in patient, must pay price

When doctors at an Ohio hospital finished colon surgery on a woman, they failed to notice that something was missing from the operating room that was there before – a towel. It was nearly five months after her June 2009 surgery before the location of the towel was discovered. It was inside the patient, 43-year-old Kelly Maron. The towel was found in her upper abdomen and removed in another surgery, but two-thirds of the length of her small bowel also had to be removed. That complication has left the married mother of three without the ability to eat many foods and suffering gastrointestinal irregularities, according to a news report. Maron filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against her surgeon and a jury recently awarded her $910,000. Her lawyer, Steve Crandall, was left to wonder how the incident happened or even why the case went to trial. He told the news media “She’s only 5-feet-2 and 95 pounds. How they left this gigantic towel in her body is beyond me. I really felt it was a shame the two sides even allowed this case to go to trial. You hear an awful lot about frivolous lawsuits. But this was a frivolous defense.” Learn more about medical malpractice lawsuits.