SEATTLE, Wash. – A routine appendectomy nearly turned fatal after a University of Washington Medical Center doctor allegedly removed part of the wrong organ by mistake. Now, a lawsuit seeks to hold the surgeon accountable.
Nearly a year ago, George Piano went to the emergency room at UWMC Northwest for abdominal pain, where he was diagnosed with appendicitis and scheduled for surgery to remove the inflamed appendix.
Piano told KIRO 7 News he woke up the next morning in even worse pain and knew something was wrong.
The lawsuit states the surgeon mistakenly removed a piece of Piano’s colon, leaving the appendix behind and puncturing his colon. His leaking colon soon led to sepsis, which Piano said nearly killed him.
A second emergency surgery was done to actually remove the appendix.
“It was horrifying,” said Betsy Piano, George Piano’s wife.
Piano claimed the surgeon who botched the first surgery did not attend his follow-up. He said she addressed the situation eight days later, she seemed to make light of it.
An assessment by a third-party surgical expert from California wrote what happened to Piano “breached the standard of care,” adding it appeared the surgeon had misidentified the sigmoid colon for the appendix and perforated it under the impression she was dividing the base the of the appendix.
In addition to months of intense pain, Piano underwent four additional surgeries as a result, required an ileostomy bag, and had an open wound the size of a pool ball in his abdomen for months.
He told KIRO it had been “a rough haul.”
In the 11 months since the surgery, Piano lost 40 pounds, spent 53 days in hospital, and has been dealing with anxiety and short-term memory loss.
The attorney representing Piano said he’d seen botched surgeries before, but nothing like this.
“I’ve never heard of someone who was unable to locate an appendix,” Moore said. “For it to result in this kind of harm and disruption is mind-boggling.”
Piano and his wife told KIRO they hadn’t wanted to file a lawsuit, but they’d gotten no responses from UWMC and felt it was necessary to prevent a similar outcome for future patients.
“I feel very lucky that I’m still alive,” George Piano said. “We didn’t want it to happen to someone else. Someone needed to put a stop to this and take responsibility and say this happened – we need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
In a statement to KIRO from UW Medicine, a spokesperson said:
“We strive to provide the best possible care to all of our patients; their safety and well-being is deeply important to us. This suit was just filed yesterday so, given the timeline, we are not able to comment on the specifics of the case.”
