Fracture in the right leg, operation on the left leg

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you probably have heard of this in black humors but have you ever seen one in real life?

Automatic translation by google

New China News Agency Xi'an on August 20th special news (for) patient right leg bone fracture, but doctor actually performed the surgery on the patient left leg. This was recently occurs in the Shanxi Province Sanyuan county hospital one strange event. In the Sanyuan county hospital, patient's son Chen said, his father already 68 years old, on August 15th the evening fell one tumble, right thigh bone fracture, on 17th morning 8 o'clock performed the surgery in the Sanyuan county hospital. The hospital course of an illness records demonstrates, the patient right hip department right thighbone place smashing bone fracture, plans to carry on the surgery name for the incision replacement in the fixed technique, the surgery personnel is Liu Jun An and so on 4 people. Chen said, in front of surgery must when carries on the general anesthesia to the patient, is he in agreement which doctor brings signs a document. Noon 12 o'clock after, the father comes out from the operating room, doctor to the family member said the surgery completed, but the family members discovered, patient's right leg smooth, above anything did not have, the left leg actually wrapped the gauze, estimated fixedly uses the steel plate and so on already sneaked in in the left leg. According to the hospital one person in charge introduces, the surgery made the wrong one matter hospital already expresses the apology to the patient family member, and was grasping to investigate the accident the concrete reason.

http://society.people.com.cn/GB/1062/3631584.html

[Mom of one]

Operating on the wrong body part actually happens more often than you think. I have seen many articles in nursing journals and in the newspaper about this. There was even an episode of ER where one of the surgeons needed his arm amputated and he had another surgeon write on the arm, "This one, moron!" or something to that effect!

[juno24]

Yes, unfortunately, it happens all too often. My mother broke her left ankle many years ago and had to have surgery to repair it. The surgical orders indicated that her right hip was to be repaired!! Luckily, someone in the OR noticed the error before they began operating, and they did the surgery on her left ankle. I have to admit, I signed the paper that said "right hip". I was so upset with myself when I realized what I had signed! The nurse had given me a bunch of "routine" papers to sign as Mom was being wheeled into pre-op, and I did not read them all thoroughly. Needless to say, I now read EVERYTHING thoroughly before I sign my name to it! I'm just thankful that someone in the OR was conscientious enough to double check that the patient and the orders matched before beginning surgery.

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my translation:

Xinhua news agency (reporter: Zhang Wei): Patient had fracture in the right leg but surgeons operated on his left leg. This is the bizzarre incident happened in San Yuan town hospital Shan'Xi

In San Yuan town hospital, Chen, patient's son, said his father was 68 years old, fell in the evening of Aug 15th and had an operation in the hospital at 8am the next day. Medical records showed the patient had a comminuted fracture of right thighbone in the right hip, the name of proposed operation was open restoration and fixation(?)

Chen said, before the general anaesthesia of the patient, he signed the agreement doctors brought to him. sometime after 12am, his father was pushed out of the operation room. doctors told relatives that the surgery had finished. but relatives the patient still had bare right leg with nothing done to it but his left leg was wrapped with gauze and they estimated steel plates used for fixation had been implanted in the left leg
A hospital officer said, hospital had already apologized to relatives for the wrong operation, the reason of the incident was still under investigation.