Moral: Don't get sick in France either.
Tummy tuck nightmare: 'I had terrible stomach pains - then I coughed and forceps popped out of my navel'
A patient is launching legal action against her cosmetic surgeon after he left a pair of 4" forceps inside her after an operation
A woman spent five months with a pair of surgical scissors in her stomach after a tummy tuck operation.
She only realised what was causing her terrible stomach pains after she saw a piece of metal protruding from her belly button after a coughing fit.
The woman in her 30s, named only as Anne, went to a cosmetic surgeon in Lyon in October for an operation to flatten her stomach following two pregnancies.
But she began having severe stomach cramps within days of her apparently 'successful' surgery.
She complained repeatedly to her surgeon at the prestigious Natecia Clinic - but was told pain was normal after the so-called abdominoplasty procedure.
Her husband told France's TF1 news: 'As soon as she came out of the clinic she began to have stomach pains.
'She went back four or five times, but she was told it was not unusual after a tummy tuck. It was not until last week that she started coughing a great deal.
'This must have dislodged something, because she looked down and there was a sharp piece of metal about the size of a thumbnail sticking through her skin at her navel.'
The woman's husband rushed her to hospital where X-rays showed a pair of four-inches long Halstead surgical forceps in her abdomen.
Her lawyer Jean Sannier added: 'The hospital immediately realised this was a surgical implement left in her stomach from a previous operation.'
But when he contacted the original surgeon on a Friday to ask him for an urgent operation to remove the scissors, he was told the woman should 'wait until Monday'.
He said: 'The man even said it was a 'little accident' and better for him to have that mistake at the end of his career rather than at the beginning.
'He said he take the forceps out for free as a 'Valentine's Day present'. His casual attitude to my patient's distress was quite unacceptable.'
The surgeon has now removed the forceps and the woman is recovering from the second operation at home, her husband said.
She is now launching legal action against the surgeon for the blunder.
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I guess she now has an "outty".
Originally Posted by zack
