Helping Injured Victims in New York Since 1983
New York Injury News
to speak to an
Injury Lawyer Now.
$2.5 Million Awarded In Malpractice Case
An Otsego County jury has awarded a record $2.5 million to a Sidney woman, Wendy Harris, 36, injured by a Sidney doctor in a routine surgical procedure eight years ago that damaged major arteries and veins in her abdomen and legs and left her with a lifetime of pain.
The verdict of medical malpractice was announced late Wednesday by an all-woman, six-member jury following a six-day civil trial in Cooperstown.
It's a record jury award in Otsego County, said one of Harris' two attorneys, Stephen Cornwell Jr. of Binghamton. The jury deliberated about three hours before the verdict was read.
Harris, a mother of two, went to The Hospital in Sidney the day before her 29th birthday in 1998 for a routine procedure, in which a small camera was inserted through a tube into her abdomen to take pictures of her uterus.
But during the procedure, Dr. Khalid Parwez, an obstetrician-gynecologist, nicked her aorta, the body's major artery, as well as her vena cava and she nearly bled to death on the operating table.
Parwez also damaged a major artery and vein to Harris' leg with a needle in a second injury, her attorney said. Both injuries were ignored by Parwez, Cornwell said.
The botched surgery led to the formation of a massive clot in her left leg, leaving her with blocked circulation in that leg and excess blood flow to her right leg. She was transferred to Wilson Memorial Regional Medical Center in Johnson City.
Two weeks later, she was hospitalized for a week at Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton where the massive clot was discovered.
She uses a pressure pump for about 10 hours each week to force the excess blood from her leg.
A first trial ended in an acquittal for Parwez, but the judge threw out that verdict; a state appeals court agreed with the judge's decision, and ordered a new trial.