Vet gets $275K after VA docs leave 2 towels inside him during surgery

The Plain Dealer, December 15, 2011

The federal government has agreed to pay $275,000 to settle a lawsuit from a man who had two towels left inside of him after surgeons at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center in Cleveland removed a cancerous kidney. Robert Sanner, 47, of New Philadelphia, felt pain and discomfort in the days after his surgery in May 2008 that left him free of cancer. It took three return visits to the hospital before he underwent a CAT scan in August 2008 that showed the towels, measuring 14-by-11 inches, had been left in his body.