iStock(WASHINGTON) — A Chicago woman filed a lawsuit against a doctor who allegedly performed surgery on the wrong eye and tried to fix the mistake without anesthesia.
Sutton Dryfhout, 21, filed a medical negligence lawsuit against Benjamin Ticho, an ophthalmologist at The Eye Specialists Center near Chicago, after a 2017 surgery that allegedly left her screaming with “bloody tears” in her eyes, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Dryfhout, who was 19 at the time, said she went in to have the doctor remove a cyst from her left eye. Ticho allegedly operated on her right eye instead and intentionally inflicted pain on her during a corrective surgery later that day.
Ticho noticed his mistake while in the middle of another surgery when a recovery room nurse asked him why Dryfhout’s right eye was bleeding when she was supposed to have surgery on her left eye, the woman’s attorneys said Thursday.
He allegedly completed the surgery he was doing and used unsterile surgical instruments from another patient to perform Dryfhout’s corrective surgery, according to her representative, Leopold & Associates.
He performed the second surgery without gloves or proper anesthesia, causing Dryfhout pain, despite the woman’s pleas to stop, the firm said.
“Dr. Ticho instructed the nurse to hold down Sutton’s head and hold her left eye open. Dr. Ticho then attempted to perform the surgery on the correct eye while Sutton was wide awake,” the firm said in a statement Thursday. “Sutton screamed and yelled for Dr. Ticho to stop. She saw and felt surgical instruments including a needle and scissors going into her eye and could feel burning from a cautery pen being used on her eye.”
Dryfhout said she still gets bad headaches and suffers from double vision as a result of the botched surgery. She accused Ticho and The Eye Specialists Center of negligence, medical battery, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
She said the experience left her traumatized.
“I’m terrified to have another surgery, because of what happened with Dr. Ticho,” Dryfhout said in a statement. “I now have double vision and headaches, which impacts my life and work. What if Dr. Ticho did this to a little kid who couldn’t speak for himself? That’s why I’m speaking out — I don’t want this to happening to anyone else.”
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Cook County, Illinois, seeks damages of more than $50,000.
Michael Henrick, an attorney for Ticho and The Eye Specialists Center, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
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