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10 shocking medical mistakes

By John Bonifield, CNN and Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
November 5, 2012

(CNN) -- When you're a patient, you trust you're in good hands, but even the best doctor or nurse can make a mistake on you or someone you love.

"Mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country that we're just not catching," says Dr. Albert Wu, an internist at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Medical errors kill more than a quarter million people every year in the United States and injure millions. Add them all up and "you have probably the third leading cause of death" in the country, says Dr. Peter Pronovost, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The harm is often avoidable, and there are strategies you can use to help doctors and nurses get things right.

Here's a list of 10 shocking medical mistakes and ways to not become a victim:

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2. Mistake: Surgical souvenirs
• Cause: Surgical staff miscounts (or fails to count) equipment used inside a patient during an operation.
• Consequences: Tools get left inside the body.
• Prevention: If you have unexpected pain, fever or swelling after surgery, ask if you might have a surgical instrument inside you.
• Example case: Nelson Bailey


Nelson Bailey left surgery with a sponge still inside his abdomen -- a foot long by a foot long.


When doctors eventually discovered the mistake and re-opened his wound to remove the sponge, it was rotting and had created perforations in his intestines, Bailey says.

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4. Mistake: Fake doctors
• Cause: Con artists pretend to be doctors.
• Consequences: Medical treatments backfire. Instead of getting better, patients get sicker.
• Prevention: Confirm online that your physician is licensed.
• Example case: Sarafina Gerling


Sarafina Gerling saw web advertisements by Arthur Copes claiming that his back brace treatment could straighten crooked spines. She thought Copes was a doctor who could correct her scoliosis.


Gerling wore a brace from Copes for six months but her curves only got worse.


Copes was eventually found guilty of insurance fraud.

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6. Mistake: Air bubbles in blood
• Cause: The hole in a patient's chest isn't sealed airtight after a chest tube is removed.
• Consequences: Air bubbles get sucked into the wound and cut off blood supply to the patient's lungs, heart, kidneys and brain. Left uncorrected the patient dies.
• Prevention: If you have a central line tube in you, ask how you should be positioned when the line comes out.
• Example case: Blake Fought


Blake Fought died in the hospital on the day he was scheduled to be discharged. He was sitting upright when a nurse removed his central line chest tube and covered the hole in his chest with gauze. Air entered the wound and formed bubbles in his blood that cut off blood flow to his major organs. Fought should have been lying down, and the nurse should have sealed the hole airtight.

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8. Mistake: Infection infestation
• Cause: Doctors and nurses don't wash their hands.
• Consequences: Patients can die from infections spread by hospital workers.
• Prevention: It may be uncomfortable to ask, but make sure doctors and nurses wash their hands before they touch you, even if they're wearing gloves.
• Example case: Josh Nahum


Josh Nahum fractured his skull and broke his leg in a skydiving accident. He was on the mend in the hospital when he caught an infection from the hospital. He died after doctors were powerless to fight the bacteria raging through his body.


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10. Mistake: Waking up during surgery
• Cause: An under-dose of anesthesia.
• Consequences: The brain stays awake while the muscles stay frozen. Most patients aren't in any pain but some feel every poke, prod and cut.
• Prevention: When you schedule surgery, ask your surgeon if you need to be put asleep or if a local anesthetic might work just as well.
• Example case: Erin Cook


When Erin Cook had surgery to have an ovary tumor removed, she remembers going to sleep and then the searing pain of being sliced open. She felt trapped in her body, unable to move or speak. The hospital later informed her, she says, that a gas vaporizer was leaking during her operation and she got only 5% of the anesthesia she needed.

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