A Georgia man is suing a hospital after leaving with a whole lot less on his mind than he went in with... Literally!
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Fernando Cluster revealed he had to seek medical attention in 2022 after developing an intracerebral hemorrhage. In layman's terms, that's a brain bleed. So Fernando (not seen above, that's from an episode of House) checked into the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for what is, apparently, considered to be a fairly routine procedure. There, doctors opted to remove a 4.7 X 6 inch chunk of his skull to help relieve some of the pressure, according to the suit, which was obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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For the math whizzes out there, yes, that's more than 28 square inches. That's a whole lot of skull! And when he returned two months later to have the chunk re-inserted, the hospital apparently COULDN'T FIND IT in their inventory of unidentified bone bits. And the hospital gave him a note with the following message:
"We inspected the freezer where bone flaps are stored and could not find a bone flap with Mr. Cluster's patient identification. 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.
You're KIDDING! That's absolutely absurd!
So this poor guy -- who literally had a huge chunk missing from his skull -- had to postpone surgery to replace it while the hospital worked on crafting a synthetic one. And at the end of November of that same year, they fitted it in there... But according to his suit, still charged him more $19,000 for the synthetic insert... After THEY lost track of his real bone fragment! See (below):
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WTF! But it gets WORSE!
After his surgery, Fernando developed an infection which necessitated a follow up procedure, leaving him unable to work for a prolonged period amid his recovery. And when it was all said and done, his bill was over $146,800. And according to his suit, the hospital never once offered him any sort of discount after losing his skull piece!
WOW.
His attorney Chloe Dallaire told the Journal-Constitution:
"While my clients are obviously upset that they and their insurance company were billed for the costs related to Emory's negligence, I'm sure you can understand that their focus is on the egregiousness of Emory losing a part of his body and then having a flippant attitude about it afterwards."
Fernando and his wife are suing for medical bills and emotional damages. We hope he gets what he deserves!
[Image via House M.D./YouTube]