A cancer patient in Ohio says surgeons took off the wrong leg, then removed the correct one later, leaving her a double amputee and sparking a lawsuit over basic safety failures.
Sharon Jacks went into Selby General Hospital in Marietta, Ohio, for a planned below-the-knee amputation of her right leg on Sept. 19, 2025. According to a lawsuit, she woke up missing the left one instead.
Doctors later removed the leg that had been scheduled for surgery in the first place. Jacks was left a double amputee. Her attorney says the error “defies explanation,” and the hospital has now called the episode avoidable.
NY Post reporting details a 32-page complaint accusing the surgeon, other members of the surgical team, and the hospital of a total breakdown in standard operating-room safeguards.
Attorney Brad Layne said medical records show the correct leg was marked before the operation. The mark was still there after the wrong leg had already been removed.
“She went into surgery, and when she woke up, the wrong leg had been taken off,” Layne said.
“It defies explanation, obviously.”
The suit says the team documented two surgical “time-outs” before the procedure. Those pauses are meant to confirm the patient’s identity, the planned operation, and the correct surgical site before any incision.
Somehow, Layne argues, none of that stopped the amputation of the wrong limb.
“Despite several opportunities to identify the mistake and stop the procedure, the surgical team somehow never noticed they were operating on the wrong leg.”
Wrong-site surgery is often called a “never event” in medicine, the kind of error safety systems exist to prevent. Jacks’ complaint alleges a “complete failure of basic safety procedures.”
Layne put the responsibility on everyone in the room.
“Every person in that operating room is responsible to make sure that that is verified before moving forward, and that includes the doctor, the staff, the nurses, the anesthesiologist, everybody that’s involved.”
“The records say that happened twice, but somehow Ms. Jacks is missing a leg that should have not been removed,” he added.
Selby General Hospital did not hide from the core fact. In a statement, it said an “adverse surgical event” occurred in September 2025 and that staff “responded immediately to address the medical needs of the patient involved and provide support to their family.”
Then came the sharper admission:
“Our proactive review of what took place confirmed this was an avoidable event, and that our expected operating room procedures were not followed. Those involved were held accountable for their actions and are no longer in their positions.”
The hospital also said it fully cooperated with a review by the Ohio Department of Health. That review, in the hospital’s telling, “confirmed our surgical protocols are safe and effective.” Officials said clinical and leadership teams have put corrective measures in place to keep this from happening again.
Protocols on paper did not protect Jacks in the operating room. That is the gap the lawsuit now puts before a court.
Jacks filed suit on Sept. 15 against her surgeon, other surgical-team members, and Selby General Hospital. The complaint lists nine counts, including gross negligence, reckless conduct, and corporate negligence.
It seeks compensatory and punitive damages for past and future medical expenses, pain and suffering, emotional distress, permanent impairment, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Layne’s public case is blunt. He said there is “simply no excuse” for what happened, and that a “complete and total failure by multiple medical professionals caused this catastrophe.”
“Now every day for the rest of her life, Sharon Jacks must live with the consequences of those failures.”
He went further on how basic the failure was.
“It shouldn’t happen in any type of medicine. It shouldn’t happen anywhere. It shouldn’t happen in a veterinary setting, even.”
The hospital says the people involved are gone and that state health officials signed off on its broader surgical protocols. Jacks still lost both legs, one by alleged mistake, one by the follow-up surgery the mistake made necessary.
Names of the individual clinicians are not laid out in the public account beyond their roles. The full court caption and docket details are not in the available reporting. The exact date of the second amputation is not specified beyond the sequence after the first surgery.
What is specified is hard enough: a cancer patient marked for a right-leg amputation left the operating room without her left leg, after two documented time-outs, with the mark still on the correct limb.
Patients walk into hospitals trusting checklists, time-outs, and professional duty more than slogans about safety culture. When those fail this completely, the bill does not land on administrators first. It lands on the person who can never get the limb back.
Hospitals can revise protocols after a never event. Sharon Jacks cannot revise the rest of her life, and accountability should be as permanent as the harm.