Medical Negligence

Daily News
By CASEY LOGAN

A jury awarded a Mossy Head man $160,000 in damages Thursday after finding a White-Wilson Medical Center surgeon negligent in his duties.

A 6.5-cm metal irrigation needle was left in John Clark’s neck by Dr. David Burkland when he performed emergency surgery on the man in June 1994 at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.

“I just don’t know what to say,” the 64-year-old Clark said outside the courtroom after the verdict was read.

Burkland contended that it was circulating nurse Mary Brown’s job to account for all of the medical supplies at the conclusion of the surgical procedure. But the jury didn’t agree. They found that Brown was not negligent.

Burkland had no comment about the outcome of the case.

The operation, called a carotid endarterectomy, is a surgical procedure in which plaque deposits and the inner lining of a blood vessel are removed from the neck. The desired result is better blood circulation.

Clark complained of constant pain in his neck from the conclusion of the surgery until the irrigation needle was removed about an inch from the surface of his neck almost two years after it was inserted there.

Clark also suffered from a medicine bag of ailments, including nosebleeds, headaches and bizarre rashes.

Lawyer Marcus Michles referred to Clark’s pain and suffering as a “wound of an ordeal.”

Clark said that Burkland ignored him and treated him like a child even after X-rays taken at a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Biloxi, Miss. indicated a foreign object was lodged in his neck.