/ 26 January 2010

Peruvian doctors amputate wrong leg, then right one

Peruvian doctors amputated the healthy leg of an 86-year-old man, then amputated the other leg when they realised their mistake.

“I was shocked when I lifted the sheets and saw they had taken his left leg,” the man’s daughter, Carmen Villanueva, told Peruvian radio station RPP.

“The ulcer was on his right leg and they had to amputate that one too to keep the infection from spreading,” she said.

The Alberto Sabogal Hospital in the coastal district of Callao just north of Lima said it had suspended the doctors involved in the botched surgery for a life-threatening ulcer, pending an investigation. – Reuters