Mechanical Robo Surgeon Goes Haywire

Routine Appendectomy Turns 55 Year Old Salesman In 200 lbs. of Ground Beef

Photograph of operating room following
Chevalier's operation in Paris.

by Winsip Custer CPW News Service

Paris.  July 10, 2010.

When Wilma Worthington was admitted to the new state of the art De Medici Robo Surgery Clinic at Paris' Pasteur Institute for Bio Mechanics, she was told that the less invasive procedure using the De Medici 2100 Robozip was 100% safe.  

"My hysterectomy was to have been a one and a half hour procedure.  It was to have been done through small incisions below my belly button.  Dr. Francais Dohmertz assured me that it was safe and that the new technology would reduce my recovery time by weeks.  After the surgery they found out that the machine had nicked my liver, colon and spleen and that I lost so much blood that I died twice on the operating table," said Worthington.  Mrs. Worthington's husband John affirmed her story as did their attorney, Frank Marx.  "Other surgeons were brought in to quickly repair Mrs. Worthington's bleeding internal organs, but the plastic surgery needed to repair the eight inch scar below her belly button will take years to repair.  That means that the mental anguish, pain and suffering that she will experience from not being able to wear her favorite bikini is astronomical, nearly incalculable and deserving of a jury's most liberal monetary rewards," said Marx.

"We are not sure at this point how much of the fault lies with Dr. Dohmertz's technique and how much was with the De Medici equipment," said Marx whose latest client was a French salesman for De Medici and, ironically, the French bio medical equipment company, Incizonz Inc.'s, leading sales person in the first half of 2011.

"I represent the family of Charles Chevalier whose body was so mangled that an autopsy was impossible," said Marx.  "Chevalier's family said that he knew full well that the equipment was not ready for the types of procedures for which it was being promoted," said Marx.  Dr. Dohmertz is reported to have recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which often makes the hands and arms subject to uncontrollable tremors.  "It was a lethal combination given the sensitivity of the De Medici Robozip's hand operated telemetry," said Marx who also offered his deep sympathy to all families whose loved ones have suffered from the unintended consequences of the De Medici equipment. 

Painting by
Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel
 in the chamber of Paris Judge
Louis DeGaul.

"This is like the movies RoboCop or 2001: A Space Odyssey in which computers went berserk," said Marks.  "Only in this case the human factor's connection to a computerized process is much more apparent," said Chevalier's widow, Beatrice, as she sat next to Mr. Marx holding the gruesome photograph of the operating room during the ill-fated procedure.  The photo, now the subject of a counter-suit by Dr. Dohmertz and the hospital because it was provided by a disgruntled hospital security man, was denied a restraining order by Judge Louis DeGaul who refused comment on his decision, but on whose chamber wall hangs a painting of Paris on Bastille Day, Prise de la Bastille, by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel, with a brass plaque beneath it with the words "une image vaut mille mots" or "a pictures worth a thousand words."

Mr. Marx noted that the new Incizonz Inc. equipment was being promoted as the answer to surgery just as the cotton gin, conveyor belt and metal press were answers to processing cotton and steel.  "I guess that we're a few years away from that type of surgery," he concluded.