
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990                   TAG: 9007130720
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MORGANTOWN, W.VA.                                LENGTH: Short

SUIT SAYS DOCTOR LEFT TOWEL INSIDE ABDOMEN

A woman who said doctors left an 18-by-24-inch towel in her abdomen after an operation filed a $1 million lawsuit against a hospital and a surgeon.

Dorothea Cline, and her husband, Randall, both of Pineville, said in the lawsuit that Dr. Daniel Stewart left the towel inside an incision made in her lower abdomen during exploratory surgery on July 27, 1988.

After her discharge from the hospital, Cline continued to experience pain and other medical problems, said the lawsuit filed Thursday in Monongalia County Circuit Court against West Virginia University Hospitals Inc. and Stewart.

She was readmitted to the hospital, where physicians removed a green surgical towel on Oct. 17, 1988, the lawsuit said.

- Associated Press

by CNB