Surgeon Leaves 16 Items in German Man’s Body

Surgery is scary enough, mostly because of, depending on the illness, what we need removed from our body. 74-year-old German born, Dirk Schroeder found his problem reversed when undergoing a fairly routine prostate cancer operation in 2009.

After the surgery, Schroeder could not even sit down without unbearable pain. During Schroder's next operation, surgeons found 16 different pieces of surgical equipment inside the German man's body. The Daily Mail report among the items found inside was, "a needle, a six-inch roll of bandage, a six-inch long compress, several swabs and a fragment of surgical mask."

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The hospital and surgical team insist it was a "post-operation" mistake and that the 16 items must have found their way inside Schroeder after the procedure was finished. Hospital officials claim it could not have been a surgical mistake because the items found inside the patient weren't even in use at the hospital at that time.

The original prostate cancer treatment was supposed to give Schroeder "six more years to live," according to The Daily Mail.

"He wanted to live to see his 80th birthday," Schroeder's daughter told German news website The World.

Surprisingly, Schroeder survived the two operations it took to remove the over a dozen pieces of medical equipment but because of "unknown" complications from his cancer, he died at in 2012 at 77 years of age.

The family is currently suing the hospital for more than $120,000 but the two sides have been fighting over the settlement since 2010.