In Romania, a Doctor has been fined $795,000 for accidentally severing a patients penis during a surgical procedure, calling it an "error".
Four years later, July 4, 2008, it was reported that the Romanian Bucharest Magistrates Court has ordered the surgeon to pay the patient $795,000 for the error and a suspended prison sentence of one year.
The man underwent further surgery where they used a piece of his arm muscle to attach to where his penis used to be. The new muscle is not functional.
The lawyer to the 33 year old man says that one does not have to be an expert to understand that the patient is "isn't in a good state of mind."
After reading about this, I looked to see if there was any further information and found that this isn't the first time a medical mistake like this has happened.
In a case that happened in 1999 but was later settled in 2003, in Texas, a 67 year-old man, Hurshell Ralls, woke up after having surgery to remove a cancerous bladder, which would have included the removal of his prostate gland.
It was alleged the doctors in that case mistakenly thought the cancer had spread to Ralls' penis, which pathology tests later showed no signs of cancer, although those tests were disputed by attorneys for the doctors..
Ralls' initiated a $ 5 million lawsuit and the case was settled out of court with the doctors not having to admit any wrongdoing and no monetary disclosure was reported to know how much Ralls was paid in the settlement.
Imagine waking up from surgery to look down and find you didn't have a penis anymore just to hear it called a "surgical error".
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