Suit Says Doctor Operated On Good Knee Woman Seeks Compensation For Mix-Up At Valley Clinic
Anna J. White awoke from surgery hoping her bum left knee was finally repaired.
Instead, she claims in a lawsuit, a fresh scar laced her right knee.
“The doctor came in and told her he’d operated on the wrong leg,” said L. Neil Axtell, White’s attorney. “She was horrified - total shock!”
White, 52, is accusing the surgeon, an anesthesiologist and Valley Hospital and Medical Center of medical negligence and personal injury in a lawsuit filed this week.
Doctors and a hospital attorney refused to comment on the surgery or what safeguards are in place to prevent such mistakes.
White, a Post Falls homemaker who raises racehorses, still has pain in the leg Dr. Jonathan Keeve mistakenly operated on, Axtell said.
“This was supposed to make her all better,” he said. “But then she had two knees that didn’t work.”
Since the surgery in January of 1993, another doctor has repaired the knee White originally sought treatment for.
The suit, filed in Spokane County Superior Court, lists as defendants Keeve, an orthopedic surgeon, and Robert Renck, an anesthesiologist.
White never knew why her left knee began hurting in the fall of 1992. Her family doctor ran some tests, then recommended arthroscopic surgery.
She signed a consent form for surgery on her left knee, Axtell said.
The surgery occurred at Valley Outpatient Surgery Clinic, which is owned by doctors and the hospital, said Conni Stamper, a hospital attorney.
Doctors performed arthroscopic surgery - a procedure in which ligaments and cartilage are repaired using a fiberoptic scope. Surgeons thread the scope through small incisions and operate with tiny instruments.
Doctors operated on White’s good knee for two hours and 20 minutes, according to Axtell.
The lawsuit alleges Keeve and Renck were negligent in failing to check the medical records, consent form and operating schedule to ensure they worked on the correct leg.
It seeks compensation for White’s physical and emotional pain and suffering, medical bills, and discomfort and loss of function of her right knee.
She’s terrified of doctors, Axtell said.
“She’d gone in with full trust in medical people, thinking her situation was going to be corrected,” he said. “You hear about these things now and then, but she couldn’t believe it could happen to her.”
, DataTimes