Pregnant woman dies after surgeon removed ovary instead of appendix

The surgery was intended to remove Maria De Jesus’s appendix. Instead, a surgeon who was still in training took out one of her ovaries.

Three weeks later, she was dead.

The incident took place in 2011, but the case is now coming before a medical tribunal in London.

Dr. Yahya Al-Abed was performing the surgery while the physician who was supposed to be monitoring him, Dr. Babatunde Coker, was eating lunch.

Even worse, The Telegraph reports another trainee doctor was allowed to make the first incision.

Medical council representative Peter Horgan said that went poorly and De Jesus was “bleeding quite heavily.”

Horgan explained that was when Al-Abed took over and “removed what he clearly believed to be the appendix.”

But he was wrong. “He thought he found it, removed it, and gave to a nurse what later turned out to be Patient A's ovary," Horgan concluded.

No one caught the mistake until De Jesus came back to the hospital in severe pain.

She was rushed to surgery but died on the operating table after delivering a stillborn child.

The official cause of death was listed as multiple organ failure due to septicemia.

Listen