Needles
Image Source: Nairobi News
A 61-year-old woman who had undergone abdominal wall surgery had a needle left inside her. Needles are mostly used to weave back the skin after surgery. When doctors performed a mitral valve surgery on her heart, it was a surprising moment for them to identify the lost needle. Who knows when the sharp object would have punctured the vital organ?
Surgical Sponges
Image Source: American Journal Of Roentgenology
Surgical sponges commonly left behind in a patient’s body after surgeries are located in cavities such as the pelvis and the abdomen. They are used to stop bleeding wounds during surgery. Sponges in the body can remain there for many years before getting detected. Abdominal computed tomography is carried out to detect blockages by surgical sponges in the body.
Safety pins
Image Source: Reddit
Pins are very small, and tracing them inside an operation room can be a hectic task. They are used to secure drapes into place. During an operation, a surgeon may be unable to locate where the pins were inserted, sewing back the skin without removing them. Due to their size, safety pins can easily be transported to other organs, causing fatal damage.
Tips for a Foley Catheter Insertion
Image Source: Radiology Masterclass
A Foley Catheter is a surgical instrument that is used to drain urine from the bladder. They are mostly used during prostate and genital surgeries. However, the tips can accidentally remain in the body. The tips are inserted into the bladder, but if care is not taken during the procedure, they could remain stuck inside the body after the surgery.
Drill tips
Image Source: Reddit
Drill tips are used during head surgeries to remove the base bone of the skull and expose the cranium’s neurovascular system. Orthopedics know that sometimes the drill bits break, and their dislodged parts may remain inside the head. The ranges posed by dislodged drill tips include migration to other parts of the body and possible damage to the cartilage.
Forceps
Image Source: STERIS
A woman in Kerala, India, was the victim of medical negligence when a pair of forceps was recovered from her abdomen. In 2017, she had undergone Cesarean birth at the government medical hospital where surgeons accidentally left behind the forceps. Another similar case was reported in Kozhikode, where a woman had forceps in her abdomen for five years.
Surgical scissors
Image Source: Reddit
When Brazilian doctors left a pair of scissors in the body of a local politician after surgery, the world was shocked. However, the cases of surgical scissors being left inside patients’ bodies are common. It has happened in India several times, and it happened to an American councilman who had undergone tumor-removal surgery.
Scopes
Image Source: Reddit
Procedures like colonoscopy require a tube fitted with a camera inserted inside the internal parts of the digestive tract to check for lesions. However, due to some unknown reasons, the scopes could detach themselves and clog up the body organs. It may take a long time before the problem is detected.
Cutting laser guides
Image Source: Reddit
Laser technology has taken prominence in the surgical industry in a bid to replace the use of the scalpel. Laser is more accurate in its cutting process, and tissues are left undamaged. However, cases of laser guides being recovered inside the bodies of patients have been on the rise. For this reason, surgeons are advised to avoid defective laser guides.
Clamps
Image Source: Reddit
Clamps are not actively used during the operation process, but they are used in holding things in position. For this reason, they are easily forgettable and can be left inside the patient’s body after the surgery. An eight-inch clamp was recovered from a patient’s body in 2011 after an operation to remove their gastric band. The forgotten item led to profuse bleeding.
Electrosurgical adapters
Image Source: Reddit
The field of electrosurgery demands adequate care and focus. However, such has not been the case in many situations where surgeons happen to leave electrosurgical components inside their patients’ bodies after a surgical procedure. Most of the scans have revealed the presence of electrosurgical adapters inside the patients’ bodies.
Tweezers
Image Source: Reddit
During a surgical operation, tweezers are used to pick very small components that cannot be picked out using the fingers. In the process of picking out small tissues, some surgeons tend to forget the tool inside the body of a patient. The tweezers have pincers that can cause severe internal damage if certain organs are pierced.
Asepto Bulb
Image Source: Reddit
The asepto bulbs are commonly used in surgeries to administer medication. The syringe is inserted inside an open wound and filled with medicine. The bulb is then squeezed to release the medicine. Sometimes when using defective asepto bulbs, the bulb is retained inside the body. In some cases, bleeding has been reported in patients who face this problem.
Knife blades
Image Source: Reddit
Knife blades recovered from the bodies of patients visiting the hospital have caught the attention of medical practitioners. The blades are used to incise tissues but are later left inside the patient because of negligence. This happened to a 49-year-old woman in East London who experienced a lot of pain because of a blade left inside her after an ovary operation.
Needle holders
Image Source: Reddit
The needle holder is used to prevent potential injury to the surgeon by allowing him to safely hold the needles when operating. Although it resembles a surgical pair of scissors, it is smaller and less detectable when left inside the body. Moreover, it can travel in the body from one part to another, endangering the vital organs of a patient.
Sponge-holding Rampley
Image Source: RedditThis equipment resembles a pair of tongs that are used to hold a ball of sponge when cleaning a surgical wound. When a surgeon does not focus, the rampley can be left inside the body accidentally. Eventually, a patient suffers a lot of pain in the region where the rampley is located. At most times, a sponge is found to be attached to its pincers.
Tubes
Image Source: Reddit
A lot of tubes are used during all forms of surgery. In a peculiar case, a drainage tube was found inside the pelvis of a 32-year-old woman. When she began experiencing pain in her renal region, an ultrasonography was done. The results showed a foreign tubular structure around the kidneys. The fractured tube came from a previous surgery she had undergone.
Measuring Devices
Image Source: Reddit
Some of the measuring devices used during orthopedic surgeries include the steel ruler and the calipers. They are used to make accurate measurements when cutting tissues. Moreover, these devices can end up inside the patient’s body. Some of the calipers that have been retained from patients’ bodies caused serious organ complications.
Surgical masks
Image Source: Reddit
This may come as a surprise. A mask? How does it end up inside the body of a patient after an operation? But believe me. It can happen. A surgical mask is meant to protect a surgeon from inhaling pathogens in the operating room. Eventually, it could be accidentally discarded inside the body of a patient when a wound is sewn up.
Babcock
Image Source: Reddit
These are specially designed surgical tools used to grasp extremely delicate tissues that could suffer damage if normal forceps were used. Their triangle-shaped jaws help surgeons to perform operations like laparotomy and abdominal procedures. It is no surprise, therefore, that these small tools will accidentally be left inside the patient’s body after an operation.
Towels
Image Source: Reddit
In California, a man who had undergone abdominal surgery for bladder cancer became a victim of medical negligence. When he began to experience pain in the stomach, he imagined that the disease had already spread. However, it turns out that the surgeons had left surgical towels in his system. A similar case happened in a lung surgery in Ohio.
Littlewoods
Image Source: Reddit
This instrument is used to grasp slippery tissue that cannot be held using forceps. It is commonly used during gynecological and cardiovascular surgeries because most slippery tissues are found in these systems. Body scans on women experiencing genital pain have shown that the Littlewood tool is commonly forgotten inside the body of a patient after surgery.
Travers
Image Source: Reddit
When surgeons are operating on superficial wounds, the Travers retractor is used to hold them and keep them open. Its short size makes it difficult to detect during a scan, and many patients have been known to live many years without knowing the tool was accidentally left inside their body after an operation.
Surgical gloves
Image Source: Reddit
A French woman was unlucky when a surgeon’s rubber glove was left inside her body after an operation. Despite attempts by doctors to quell her pain by administering painkillers, the pain she experienced did not stop. After three days, her contractions resulted in her pushing out a glove from her genitals.
Wires
Image Source: Reddit
Doctors in a hospital in England reported a missing wire after a surgical operation in 2018. Twelve hours earlier, they accidentally inserted the wire inside one of their patients and forgot it in the body. In Philadelphia, a similar case was pronounced when Donald Gable was reported to have a two-foot wire in his chest. For six weeks!
Retractor
Image Source: Reddit
A Seattle man experienced severe pain in his body after an operation he underwent in 2000. However, an airport detector machine alerted him that there was a metallic object inside his body. When a scan was done, it was revealed that a 13-inch retractor was detected in his body. The surgical tool was causing pressure between his abdomen and chest, causing a lot of pain.
Gauze
Image Source: Reddit
A 34-year-old woman was admitted to the emergency ward of a hospital after complaining about severe abdominal pain for a month. It was later discovered that a surgical gauze was left inside her body. She revealed that she had undergone an operation nine years prior when it was suspected that the gauze had been accidentally forgotten.
Scalpel
Image Source: Reddit
It was a horrifying experience for an army veteran who visited the hospital in 2013 to have his prostate removed. After the surgery, Glenford Turner started experiencing abdominal pain, and despite the doctor’s reassurance that it would end, he returned four years later, complaining of the same problem. Later, a scalpel was recovered between his bladder and rectal area.
Surgical Swab
Image Source: Reddit
A woman in Auckland was shocked when a surgical swab was recovered from her abdomen after four weeks of a surgical operation. The swab is used during Caesarian deliveries to stop bleeding. When the Auckland District Health Board carried out an investigation, they were unable to establish how the swab found its way inside the woman’s body.
An entire set
Image Source: Pinterest
How crazy would it be to have different surgical items inside your body? This is the peculiar case of Dirk Schroeder after his surgical operation in 2009. He reported intense pain and fatigue after the operation, but doctors ignored these conditions as normal. Later on, body scans showed that he had 16 different surgical items inside him. Sounds like a vendetta to me.