Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Killer

A British mother died after a doctors failed to spot a 6-inch long toilet brush handle embedded in her buttocks, a judicial investigation into her death was told Tuesday.

Cindy Corton, 35, was left with the bizarre injury after a drunken fall in a friend's bathroom in 2005, but doctors missed it — even after taking X-rays.

It was two years before Corton, who was in constant pain, was able to convince doctors that the thin serrated plastic handle was stuck in her flesh.

By then, what should have been a routine procedure to remove it, had become much more dangerous because the handle was embedded in her pelvis.

After two unsuccessful operations in 2007, the mother-of-one was in such agony that she agreed to undergo further surgery in June 2009, despite being told it could be fatal.

Corton spent more than 10 hours in surgery at Queens Medical Center in Nottingham, England, but died from massive blood loss.

Doctors who first saw her at Lincoln County Hospital and Grantham Hospital, both in central England, were slammed for "serious errors." "It was a significant foreign object,” West Lincolnshire coroner Stuart Fisher said. “It is difficult to image anything more significant."

No comments: