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A woman goes in for knee surgery and winds up with a stomach as big as a watermelon and
needs emergency abdominal surgery. Would you like to learn what this horror story is all
about? Come join me as I share with you this great information. Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski.
I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney practicing law in the
state of New York. She went in for a knee replacement surgery and the surgery went great.
The surgeon left specific instructions with the staff (with the nursing staff) that when
she was going to go back to the recovery room she was going to have a drain placed. This
was a woman who was middle aged. All of a sudden, her belly began to get bigger and
bigger and bigger and more painful and painful and she started to scream out. And the nurses
came running over and they couldn't figure out why her belly was getting bigger and bigger.
Now remember, during surgery nobody did anything to her belly. The only thing they did was
they operated on her knee. Her knee replacement went great. And now, in the recovery room,
the nurses can't figure out what's going on. The doctors are called over, they can't figure
out what's going on. And finally, a surgeon comes over and realizes "Look we have to get
you into surgery, find out emergently what's happening because this is not normal." They
rush her into the operating room only 15 or 20 minutes after she had come out of surgery.
And now this is what happens. The surgeon takes the scalpel and the moment he takes
it and cuts the belly, phssssh! That's exactly what he hears: an escape of air like a balloon
deflating. And they look around and they're examining, exploring internally inside her
abdomen. They're looking at the bowel. They're doing something called "running the bowel."
They want to see if there's any air, if there's holes, perforations, leaks in the colon that
might account for why there's so much air in her abdomen. And you know what the surgeon
found? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Everything was normal except for this unusual finding
when he made that cut with the scalpel right into her belly. And you know what? They couldn't
figure out what was going on. So the surgeon closed her up and takes her back to recovery.
And now they begin to investigate. They speak to the nurses, the doctors, everybody who
was involved with the first procedure. And you know what they learned? They learned a
remarkable thing. The nurse who was supposed to attach the drainage device that was attached
to the knee, she was supposed to take that and attach it to a suction device to suction
out any fluid after the surgery while she was in recovery. Well the nurse did attach
that tubing right to a device. Unfortunately for the patient, it was not a suction device
sucking fluid out. Instead she attached it to an oxygen device so when she turned the
valve on air was being pumped up into the knee, which is a close space and there's no
place for the air to go. So now all of a sudden, the air starts going up into the skin -- underneath
the skin -- creeping up the leg all the way to the abdominal area and there was no air
in the belly itself. It was underneath the skin. And so what the surgeon heard when she
went back to take her to emergency surgery to open her up, that deflating noise was air
coming out right under the skin. So why do I share this great information with you? I
share it with you just to give you an insight and an understanding into particular case
that I was able to successfully handle and resolve on behalf of this woman. And you know
chances are you have questions or concerns about your own particular matter. And if your
matter happened here in New York and you do have legal questions, what I encourage you
to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your legal questions. This is something
that I do every single day and I welcome your call. And by the way, if your matter happened
outside of New York give me a call anyway because I can probably refer you to a trusted
attorney in your state. As always, my phone number is 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com.
Well that's it for today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, coming to you from Orlando,
Florida. Have a wonderful day!