Background: Selby General Hospital in Marietta, Ohio (Google Maps). Inset: Sharon Jacks (WKYC/YouTube).
A woman with cancer went into an Ohio hospital to have her leg amputated — and woke up to find that the surgeons had removed the wrong one, a lawsuit claims.
The attorneys for 74-year-old Sharon Jacks allege Selby General Hospital, its parent company Marietta Area Health Care Inc., and the surgeons involved engaged in medical negligence and battery, among other things, when they removed the wrong leg.
Despite several procedures put in place to avoid such an event occurring, the lawsuit says, the hospital staff "failed to properly identify and verify the correct operative extremity." As a result, they apparently "proceeded with surgery on the wrong leg."
On Sept. 19, 2025, Jacks was in Selby General Hospital in Marietta, Ohio, a city right on the state's southern border with West Virginia. She had a "chronic venous stasis ulcer," which the Cleveland Clinic defines as "a wound that takes longer than usual to heal" because of "vein and blood flow issues and often occurs on your legs near your ankle."
She had cancer, area CBS affiliate WBNS reported.
Hospital staff had evaluated her "and determined that a below-knee amputation of the RIGHT lower extremity would be performed," the complaint says. She consented to the surgery, and the surgical schedule "identified the planned procedure as a right below-knee amputation."
Before surgery, the hospital workers were "under a duty" to do several things, such as "correctly identify the operative extremity, verify the surgical site, properly mark the operative limb, conduct a proper time-out, and ensure that surgery was performed only on the correct anatomical location."
The "time-out" to which the complaint refers denotes a time period during which the surgeons and other staff take a moment to review and verify what they're doing. In this case, the surgical team reportedly conducted two "time-outs" before the procedure.
Despite the customary guardrails that were supposed to be in place, Jacks woke up to find that her left leg had actually been removed, not her right one. It was a "Never Event," the lawsuit states, which refers to a term coined in 2001 referencing "particularly shocking medical errors—such as wrong-site surgery—that should never occur," per the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The error "required additional surgery and medical treatment," the complaint states.
It "defies explanation," attorney Brad Layne of Kayser, Layne & Clerk PLLC told the regional TV station.
"The surgeon actually marked the correct leg pre-surgery; the mark was still on the correct leg after the wrong leg had been taken off," the lawyer representing Jacks added.
"The performance of surgery upon the wrong extremity constituted a complete failure of basic patient safety procedures and represented a never event under accepted healthcare standards," the lawsuit continues, saying Jacks "sustained severe and permanent bodily injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress, disability, loss of enjoyment of life, medical expenses, lost earnings, and other damages."
And her family was affected too, the nine-count complaint adds. Her husband "has suffered and will continue to suffer the loss of the services, society, companionship, comfort, affection, assistance, cooperation, consortium, fellowship, aid, support, and marital relationship of his wife."
The attorneys seek damages and other relief available under Ohio law.
Jacks no longer has cancer, Layne told NBC News.
In a statement to WBNS, Selby General Hospital acknowledged that its "proactive review of what took place confirmed this was an avoidable event, and that our expected operating room procedures were not followed."
"Those involved were held accountable for their actions and are no longer in their positions," the statement added.
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