Doctor Removes Wrong Testicle From Pennsylvania Man, Jury Awards $870,000 In Damages

A jury in Pennsylvania awarded $870,000 to Steven Hanes of Mount Union, after the court ruled against a hospital and one of its doctors for removing the wrong testicle during a surgery in June 2013, reports said Sunday. Hanes’ lawyer Braden Lepisto said the jury consisted of 11 women and one man and they deliberated on the case for about an hour and 20 minutes before coming to the decision.

Hanes, 54, was awarded a total amount of $870,000 in damages, which comprised of $620,000 for “pain and suffering” and $250,000 for “reckless indifference,” according to a report by PennLive. The jury concluded the case Wednesday and reached a verdict against the J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and Dr. Valley Spencer Long, the doctor who conducted the surgery on Hanes. Hanes filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and the doctor in 2014.

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In his lawsuit, Hanes said Long’s reckless behavior was one of the reasons for the mistake during the surgery. The doctor was not able to identify the damaged testicle and thus ended up removing the wrong one. Hanes claimed in his lawsuit he had been undergoing chronic pain in his right testicle and thus he visited Long, who recommended a surgery even though other options were available. Long removed the healthy left testicle instead of the one that was damaged.

Based on Hanes’ medical records, the damaged testicle on the right was about half the size of the healthy one on the left during the time of the surgery, a report from Fox 6 Now indicated.

“Steve had the right testicle pain for 15 years before he went to see Dr. Long. He wanted to relieve the pain. Four years later Steve continues to have the pain. He's had more frequent pain.” said Hanes’ lawyer Lepisto.

Court filings also claimed Long wrote in a post-operative report that “it appeared that the left testicle and cord may actually have been removed instead of the right one.” Hanes said in his lawsuit that Long told him about this during a follow-up visit.

“The conduct of the doctor during the surgery indicated he had no idea which testicle he was removing,” Lepisto said.

Lepisto added Hanes now has a debilitating fear of having his damaged testicle treated because of what happened in the earlier surgery. “This case, I understand why it kind of went viral just because of what is involved, but the reality is, it's a condition that has affected my client significantly,” Lepisto told the Washington Post. “Although some people may see it as kind of laughing matter initially, the award was completely justified based on the evidence and the toll that it's taken on Steve.”

Lepisto also mentioned it was not clear till date how the doctor made such a mistake in the operating room.

“The doctor gave an explanation that really made no anatomical or medical sense,” Lepisto said. “He claimed that he removed the testicle that was on the right side of the scrotum and the testicle had a spermatic cord that led to the left side of the body. Essentially, the doctor claimed that the testicles had switched sides at some point.”

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Lepisto also suggested the doctor could have been more careful while operating and he could have taken steps to be sure of which one he was removing.

“If he had just tracked that spermatic cord up into the body, that would have told him which side he was on,” Lepisto said. “It's just extremely unlikely because there are structures in the body that prevent the testicles from moving freely from one side to the other. There was just no evidence that those structures had been compromised.”