RivCo Man Sues After Botched Surgery That Cost Him His Leg: Report

RIVERSIDE, CA — A 58-year-old Riverside County man has opened a lawsuit after a routine knee surgery turned disastrous and resulted in amputation.

Wayne Wolff, a resident of Perris, is suing the University of California Board of Regents for the alleged botched surgery, which was meant to be a simple outpatient procedure to repair the meniscus in his left knee, the Orange County Register reported.

The lawsuit, filed by Wolff and his wife Lisa on Feb. 11 in Orange County Superior Court, accuses Dr. Dean Wang, head of sports medicine at UCI Medical Center’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, of medical malpractice.

The suit alleges Dr. Wang mistakenly severed and cauterized a main artery that supplies blood to the lower left leg, misidentifying the artery as a vein.

A hearing for the case is scheduled on July 15.

Wolff's wife, Lisa, who is also filing the suit, is a veteran emergency room nurse, who said she called attention to the issue but was unsuccessful.

Although Wolff reported intense pain and a lack of a pulse in his left foot after the surgery, the issue went unattended for days, the suit says. During that time, the suit says Wang left for a two-day conference, turning Wolff’s care over to resident doctors who did not realize that Wolff's leg was dying, the Register reported.

By the time it was diagnosed by another doctor, it was too late to save Wolff's leg, which was amputated below the knee, the Register reported.

During the surgery on April 3, 2024, Wang cut what he initially said was a blood vessel, which took 35 minutes to control the bleeding. The doctor reportedly told Lisa that he "nicked a vein," the suit says, according to the newspaper.

“I look forward to adjudicating the case in front of the court and jury, in a public trial,” the Wolffs' attorney, Jeoffrey Robinson, told the newspaper. “The public deserves the right to hear this and, simply put, this should never happen to anyone again.”

Read more from the Orange County Register: UCI Medical Center patient loses left leg after undergoing routine knee surgery