Jury Awards Man Nearly $900K After Doctor Cuts Off the Wrong Testicle

While it may not be a substitute for what he lost, a Pennsylvania man was awarded nearly $900,000 after a medical error that resulted in the wrong testicle being surgically removed.

Steven Hanes of Mount Union visited his urologist in 2013 due to testicular pain and was given a diagnosis that the testicle needed to be chopped off. Unfortunately, for Mr. Hanes, the doctor performing the surgery ended up removing the wrong testicle.

OUCH!

Now years after the injury, a jury has ruled that Long is entitled to $870,000 in damages for the botched procedure.

According to Penn Live “Ouch! Jury awards $870K to man whose doctor removed the wrong testicle”:

How much is a human testicle worth?

A Pennsylvania jury this week ballparked its value at nearly $900,000.

That’s how much the Huntingdon County panel decided Steven Hanes, a 54-year-old Mount Union man, should receive in damages because a doctor removed the wrong testicle during an operation in June 2013.

The jury of 11 women and one man reached that verdict against Dr. Valley Spencer Long and the J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Huntingdon on Wednesday at the end of a 2 1/2-day civil trial.

Braden R. Lepisto, Hanes’ lawyer, said Thursday that the verdict appears to be the first monetary award to be granted by a jury in a medical malpractice case in Huntingdon County in more than 25 years.

The big question here is: How could something like this happen?

“That was my thought when we first got this case,” said Lepisto, of the Philadelphia law firm Kline & Specter. “We just felt the evidence was so obvious.”

Hanes claimed in his suit that he went to Long, a urologist, because he was experiencing chronic pain in his right testicle. Although other, less invasive procedures were options, Long recommended surgery, Lepisto said.

In the operating room, Long removed Hanes’ healthy left testicle while leaving the damaged right one in place, Hanes’ suit states. Hanes claimed the doctor was “reckless” in failing to properly identify the testicle that was supposed to be removed.

It’s hard to understand how something like this could happen and the doctor probably needs to find another line of work.