A 74-year-old Ohio woman went into hospital to have a leg amputated and woke up to find surgeons had removed the wrong one, according to a lawsuit.
Attorneys for Sharon Jacks allege that Selby General Hospital, its parent company Marietta Area Health Care Inc. and the surgeons involved committed medical negligence and battery, among other claims. Despite safeguards meant to prevent such errors, the suit says staff “failed to properly identify and verify the correct operative extremity” and “proceeded with surgery on the wrong leg.”
On Sept. 19, 2025, Jacks was at Selby General in Marietta, a city on Ohio’s southern border with West Virginia. She had a “chronic venous stasis ulcer,” which the Cleveland Clinic defines as “a wound that takes longer than usual to heal” because of “vein and blood flow issues and often occurs on your legs near your ankle.” She also had cancer, area WBNS reported.
Hospital staff evaluated her “and determined that a below-knee amputation of the RIGHT lower extremity would be performed,” the complaint says. She consented, and the surgical schedule “identified the planned procedure as a right below-knee amputation.”
Before surgery, staff were “under a duty” to “correctly identify the operative extremity, verify the surgical site, properly mark the operative limb, conduct a proper time-out, and ensure that surgery was performed only on the correct anatomical location.” A “time-out” is a pause in which the surgical team reviews and verifies the procedure. The team reportedly conducted two before operating.
Even so, Jacks woke up to find her left leg had been removed instead of her right. The lawsuit calls it a “Never Event,” a term coined in 2001 for “particularly shocking medical errors—such as wrong-site surgery—that should never occur,” per the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The error “required additional surgery and medical treatment,” the complaint states.
It “defies explanation,” attorney Brad Layne of Kayser, Layne & Clerk PLLC. “The surgeon actually marked the correct leg pre-surgery; the mark was still on the correct leg after the wrong leg had been taken off,” the lawyer added.
“The performance of surgery upon the wrong extremity constituted a complete failure of basic patient safety procedures and represented a never event under accepted healthcare standards,” the lawsuit continues. It says Jacks “sustained severe and permanent bodily injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress, disability, loss of enjoyment of life, medical expenses, lost earnings, and other damages.”
Her family was affected too, the nine-count complaint adds. Her husband “has suffered and will continue to suffer the loss of the services, society, companionship, comfort, affection, assistance, cooperation, consortium, fellowship, aid, support, and marital relationship of his wife.” The attorneys seek damages and other relief available under Ohio law.
Layne told NBC News that Jacks no longer has cancer. In a statement to WBNS, Selby General acknowledged that its “proactive review of what took place confirmed this was an avoidable event, and that our expected operating room procedures were not followed.”
“Those involved were held accountable for their actions and are no longer in their positions,” the statement added.