'Tragic mistake': Hospital amputates wrong leg of elderly man

A hospital amputated the wrong leg of an elderly patient during surgery in what it described a “tragic mistake”.

The 82-year-old patient was suffering from many illnesses, according to the hospital in Australia’s Freistadt town near the Czech border. His left leg needed to be amputated due to the illnesses.

“We are deeply shocked that on Tuesday, 18 May, despite quality assurance standards, the wrong leg of an 82-year-old man … was amputated,” the hospital said.

The mistake was noticed when the patient’s bandage was changed on Thursday morning. “We have to find out how this failure, this mistake could happen. I would like to apologise publicly here,” the hospital’s medical director, Norbert Fritsch, said at a news conference.

The medical facility said the mistake seems to have been made shortly before the surgery when the leg that was to be amputated was marked.

“Unfortunately the mistake, in which the right leg was removed instead of the left, occurred as a result of a sequence of unfortunate circumstances,” it said.

The hospital is investigating what led to the error. The patient still needs to have another operation to amputate his left leg from mid-thigh.