A court in Austria has fined a surgeon 2,700 euros ($3,050) for mistakenly amputating the wrong leg of a patient. The surgeon was fined at Linz Regional court on Wednesday.
The surgeon was working on May 18 at a clinic in Freistadt when he “carried out an inadequate clarification with the existing medical records and the photo documentation before the operation for the planned amputation of the left thigh and thus marked the right leg for the surgical intervention.” The court’s vice president, Walter Eichinger, told CNN.
Eichinger added that the right leg was amputated without any medical indication. $5,666 was awarded as damages to the widow of the patient who died before the court date for reasons unrelated to the amputation.
The accused and the prosecutor have until 12noon, on December 6 to appeal the decision or the court’s judgement will be final from December 7.
After the incident in May, the hospital released a statement following the incident which it called a tragic mistake caused by human error.
