A Georgia man filed a negligence lawsuit this month against an Atlanta hospital that he says lost a chunk of his skull that had been removed during emergency brain surgery in 2022.
The man, Fernando Cluster, 62, of Decatur, Ga., and his wife, Melinda Cluster, filed the lawsuit in DeKalb County court on Aug. 8 against Emory Healthcare, the hospital system that operates Emory University Hospital Midtown, where the surgery was performed.
Because part of Mr. Cluster’s skull was lost — a 12-by-15-centimeter piece known as a “bone flap” — replacement surgery was delayed by nearly two weeks, and the hospital had to use synthetic material to implant it back in his head, according to the lawsuit. The synthetic flap later became infected, which required Mr. Cluster to have another surgery, the lawsuit says.
Mr. Cluster is calling the hospital negligent and seeking damages because of the “physical and emotional pain” he says he experienced, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit does not specify a dollar amount, but says Mr. Cluster is asking the hospital to pay for his medical bills, among other costs.
The suit claims that Mr. Cluster has not been able to work as a result of the error. The suit also says that Ms. Cluster has been “deprived of the love, society, companionship and consortium of her husband.”
Chloe Dallaire, a lawyer representing Mr. Cluster, said in phone interview on Friday that since 2022, Mr. Cluster had been in “constant fear” that the synthetic flap would become infected again.
“This was an event that should have never happened,” Ms. Dallaire said.
Representatives for Emory Healthcare did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Mr. Cluster was admitted to Emory University Hospital Midtown on Sept. 30, 2022, and was diagnosed with an intracerebral hemorrhage, a type of bleeding in the brain, according to the lawsuit.
To treat Mr. Cluster, the lawsuit states, doctors had to remove a portion of his skull, in order to allow his brain to heal. He was scheduled to return to the hospital on Nov. 11, after he had healed from the initial surgery, for another operation to replace the missing part of his skull, according to court records.
But as Mr. Cluster was prepared for surgery on Nov. 11, the lawsuit says, workers at the hospital could not find the bone flap that had been removed, and his surgery was canceled.
Workers at the hospital searched a freezer where bone flaps are stored, but couldn’t find Mr. Cluster’s, according to a document from Mr. Cluster’s medical records provided by his lawyer.
“There were several bone flaps with incomplete or missing patient identification, but we could not be certain which, if any, of these belonged to Mr. Cluster,” the document states.
Mr. Cluster was told that his replacement surgery would be delayed until the hospital could make a synthetic 3-D printed implant based on his latest CT scan, according to court documents. The replacement surgery, known as a cranioplasty, was eventually performed on Nov. 23, 2022, according to the lawsuit.
The hospital then charged Mr. Cluster for the synthetic bone flap and for the extra time that he had to spend in the hospital, which came to more than $146,000, according to court documents.
Ms. Dallaire, who represents clients in medical malpractice cases, said on Friday that she had never seen a “unique” case like Mr. Cluster’s.
“They mislabeled and misplaced a huge chunk of somebody’s skull,” she said. “I mean, this was the size of a palm.”
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