The change arrives hard for Wayne Wolff, whose left leg was amputated last year after what was supposed to be routine knee surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange.
More than eight times, Wolff, 58, fell on the stairs of his old two -story house in Perris, forcing him and his wife to move to a house on a floor elsewhere in town. They exchanged their dream house – the site of family barbecues, birthdays and celebrations for graduation, where they had replanted each tree and played horseshoe – for a house that always feels foreign to them.
An outdoor enthusiast, Wolff once trained his rifle on Duck, Pheasant, Chukar, “everything that stole”. Now Wolff hesitates to hunt again after being stuck in the mud alone with his prosthesis. It’s just too risky, he said.
He plans to sell the Ski Sea Ray boat which he has had for 20 years, the “Jungle Cruise” because he no longer feels safe on the water. It is particularly painful because he was a skilful and life skier for life. “Poetry in motion,” said his wife, Lisa, 54.
“The first time I saw him water skiing, my jaw hit the bottom of the boat,” she said.
But since allegedly botched surgery, they had to reconsider their recreational choices.
“It’s a punch for sure … (but) you have to know your limits,” said Wolff.
The trial reduces negligence
The Wolff continues the Council of Regents of the University of California for an alleged negligence of the hospital and its chief of sports medicine and the doctor of the UC Irvine team, Dean Wang. Wolffs’ lawyers refused to discuss the legal aspects of the case.
The medical center has also refused to comment.
The most difficult blow may be that Wolff can no longer do the job he has held for 30 years, boring tunnels for metros and sewers in the United States and Canada. It is simply too dangerous to descend these trees, where he oversees the electric construction of boring equipment.
“If something happened, how would he come out if he couldn’t move quickly?” Said Lisa.
‘I did not expect this challenge’
Although it has been a year since his life has changed forever, Wolff still adapts to his new reality.
“To enter (in the hospital) for an improvement and an ambulatory operation, I did not expect this challenge. I could never have predicted this result,” he said.
In 2024, Wolff was looking for a doctor to operate on his left meniscus, damaged by the wear of an active life. A colleague recommended Wang and UCI Medical Center, assessed among the best hospitals by US News & World Report, according to the hospital website. The recommendation checked all the boxes for Wolff.
“They were the big shop in the city,” he said.
What’s wrong?
Wolff was supposed to go home the same day as his operation on April 3, 2024. But there was a problem.
According to the trial, Wang told Lisa after the surgery that he had cut a vein, which he then cauterized. A few days later, the doctors discovered that Wang had actually cut the artery which supplied blood to the lower left -wing limbs.
He should not have taken days to make this discovery, supports the trial.
Lisa immediately knew that something was wrong, but she said that no one had listened.
Nurse of the veteran trauma room by business, she alerted hospital staff that her husband’s excruciating pain was disproportionate with arthroscopic surgery. And she knew that Wolff had a high threshold of pain.
Once, when he accidentally dropped a key on his head while working on a car, he asked his wife to sew him at home – while watching a charge match – rather than going to the emergency room.
Reduced concerns
But the agony he experienced after surgery was nothing like he imagined. Lisa immediately knew what was going on.
“When the tissues do not obtain the nutrients he needs, it hurts, he shouts for nutrients. This is called ischemia,” she said. In other words, the leg did not receive blood. And he was dying.
For days, doctors and nurses have reduced Lisa’s concerns, even when she complained that Wolff’s leg was seriously swollen, cold to the touch and becoming marbled. Nor could he move his feet and his toes, alleys the costume.
The staff refused their requests for ultrasound of the leg and rejected it – even after the pulse disappeared from their foot, according to the costume.
The doctors carried out another surgical intervention and found that the artery was cut and the leg should be amputated. Lisa was right, but her justification was far from satisfactory.
She felt “unknown, licensed, frustrated”.
“It broke my heart to see him in so much pain and I couldn’t do anything about it,” said Lisa, stifling tears. “This is what I do in life, I was trying for my best friend. … I just wanted to be heard.”
‘It was devastating’
The doctors announced the news in Lisa of the need to take her husband’s leg in an empty surgical waiting room.
“It was devastating. Honestly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, “she recalls. “I was crying hysterically … sobbing uncontrollable.”
Then she had to say to Wolff, who recovered from surgery, that her leg should go.
“It was horrible,” said Lisa. “He is so active and now our lives were going completely, 100% were going to change forever. And the fact that I had to tell him was not fair.”
Wolff learned the news with a little stoicism and faith that God had a plan for him.
“I thought honestly, I’m going to get the most out of it. Things are difficult, I will take up the challenge and I will hit him with it,” he said. “God directs the ship.”
His resolution was tested when, a few days later, his leg was removed by a team of surgeons and he woke up with a bruised strain.
“It was a revelation of the eyes and a verification of reality, just trying to understand what it will take to live like that.” Said Wolff.
It was over time to jump in the shower and descend tunnels.
“Everything is 10 times harder and takes 10 times more,” he said. “You are not supposed to hate and I joined it as best I can. If someone had done their job, I wouldn’t talk to you right now.
Lisa, who no longer works in a hospital but teaches nursing in two local colleges, said that she uses her negative experience in the UCI Medical Center in her classroom lessons on how nurses can improve.
“I don’t want someone (others) to go through the living hell that we lived last year.”
California Daily Newspapers
