Coming out of surgery in Baltimore?s Sinai Hospital, LaShawn McClary knew something was wrong.
She just never fathomed the surgeon left sponges, gauze and blue plastic material inside her abdomen ? where they would stay for six years.
Don?t adjust your glasses. That?s not a typo.
McClary, a Baltimore resident, is seeking $5 million in damages in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Sinai, Owings Mill?s Femi-Care Surgical Center and Dr. Sheo Sharma.
“I have two kids,” McClary said. “To think I could have lost my life because of this, it?s hard.”
The lawsuit alleges McClary, then 33, underwent surgery after a gynecological examination for the removal of a benign tumor Jan. 18, 2001. The operative report of the surgery said all medical supplies had been checked twice and were accounted for, according to the lawsuit. In the months following the surgery, McClary complained to Sharma that she had abdominal pain and vaginal discharge, among other symptoms. She returned to the hospital, but Sharma told her pain was to be expected and would go away, the lawsuit states.
“The same day, I went home and just vomited, profusely vomited, all night,” McClary said. “I couldn?t sleep. I couldn?t lay down. It was so much pain, I really felt like I was dying.”
McClary returned several more times, but the pain continued ? for the next six years, she said.
In February, McClary obtained a new gynecologist at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and underwent surgery. That doctor, said McClary?s attorney, was “shocked” to find the foreign objects.
“Nobody ever took an X-ray of her for six years,” said attorney Marvin Ellin. “Had an X-ray been taken, this would have been found.”
Hospital officials had not yet been served with the lawsuit, filed in Baltimore County.
“We take every allegation that comes to us seriously,” said Jennifer Gelman, a Sinai spokeswoman. “We have no knowledge of this suit at this time.” She declined to comment further.
Ellin said the hospital?s alleged mistakes are the kind of errors that scare people.
“It?s perfectly ridiculous,” he said. “There is absolutely no defense to this case. They left it in there for six years and she?s had no intervening surgery of any kind. So they can?t blame it on another operation.”
