A Georgia man is suing a hospital after staff allegedly lost part of his skull during brain surgery.
Fernando Cluster, 62, was admitted to Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta in September 2022 for intracerebral hemorrhage, also known as a brain hemorrhage.
Doctors planned to remove a saucer-sized piece of his skull to reduce pressure on his brain, according to a lawsuit.
But when Mr. Cluster returned to the hospital two months later to have the 4.7-by-6-inch piece replaced, the hospital said it had been lost in a pile of other unidentified bone fragments from other patients.
Fernando Cluster, 62, was admitted to Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta in September 2022 for intracerebral hemorrhage. The hospital allegedly lost a piece of his skull in the process.
Mr. Cluster is now suing Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta for compensation for medical bills and emotional damages.
A note from hospital staff in Mr. Cluster’s file said: “We inspected the freezer where bone flaps are stored and were unable to find a bone flap with Mr. Cluster’s patient ID.”
‘There were several bone flaps with incomplete or missing patient identification, but we could not be sure which, if any, of them belonged to Mr. Cluster.’
Without the piece, Mr. Cluster was left with a dent in his head known as a cranial depression.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by the Constitution of the Atlanta Journal newspaperIt took several days of waiting before the hospital was able to order a synthetic replacement in the exact shape of the missing piece.
In November 2022, doctors placed the flap, but the hospital allegedly charged Mr. Cluster $19,000.
And shortly after, she developed an infection, which the lawsuit says is a known complication of synthetic replacements.
This is because certain materials used to make the components, such as hydroxyapatite, acrylic, and biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP), may not always be compatible with brain tissue.
When materials are not compatible, they can trigger an exaggerated immune reaction in the brain, leading to infection.
The infection left him unable to work and by the end of the ordeal, Mr. Cluster’s bill had risen to $146,800.
The hospital allegedly did not offer any discount for the treatment.
Mr. Cluster and his wife are now suing the hospital for compensation for medical bills and emotional damages.
“It is shocking that a medical provider like Emory would lose part of one of its patients’ skulls and then refuse to accept responsibility,” Cluster and his wife said in a statement.
We now have to live with the consequences of Emory’s negligence, including the daily fear of another head infection and medical costs.
“We want to know if this has happened to other patients to see if Emory has given them an explanation. Our goal is to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other patients again.”
Chloe Dallaire, an attorney for Mr. Cluster at the Atlanta-based Hornsby Law Group, told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution: “While my clients are obviously upset that they and their insurance company were billed for costs related to Emory’s negligence, I’m sure you can understand that their focus is on the atrocity of Emory losing a body part and then being flippant about it afterward.”