Ohio Cancer Patient Sues Hospital After Wrong Leg Amputation
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
Sharon Jacks, a 74-year-old Army veteran, underwent a below-the-knee amputation at Selby General Hospital in Marietta, Ohio, on September 19, 2025, as treatment for squamous cell carcinoma in her right leg; surgeons instead removed her left leg. Records indicate the correct limb had been marked and that staff held two pre-incision “time-outs” to confirm the patient, procedure, and site; her attorney, Brad Layne, said the team realized the error during the operation, told her family before she woke, and that the mark was still on the right leg after the left was taken off. Four months later she had the originally planned right-leg amputation and is now a double amputee below the knee; Layne said she has been cancer-free since. Jacks and her husband sued the hospital, surgeon Dr. Gregory Krivchenia II, and other members of the medical and surgical teams in Washington County Common Pleas Court, alleging gross negligence, battery, and reckless conduct and seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The hospital called the incident an “avoidable event,” said expected operating-room procedures were not followed, stated that those involved are no longer in their positions, said it retrained surgical staff and cooperated with an Ohio Department of Health review that, in its account, found its protocols “safe and effective”; Krivchenia remains licensed in Ohio, and a receptionist at his former practice said he is retired.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Brad Layne
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: lawsuit
- Credits another outlet 0 of 2
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 2
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 30, 06:49 UTC by Fox News, naming its source. First document in the first report, from Fox News (lawsuit).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage reports that the team ran two time-outs to confirm the correct limb and still cut the other one. Left-leaning coverage omits those pauses, so a reader never sees the amputation as something that followed a completed checklist rather than a skipped one. Those recorded pauses appear only in Fox News, not in NBC News.
Left-leaning coverage leads with an Army veteran and names Dr. Gregory Krivchenia II as still licensed in Ohio. Right-leaning coverage never names him and instead opens on her waking without the left leg. Who held the knife, and whether that person can still operate, shows up on one side and not the other.
What did the time-out paperwork list as the surgical site, and who in the room signed it?
Bottom line
NBC News never tells you the chart already showed two time-outs when the wrong leg came off at Selby General.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- The medical team had two surgical time-outs before the procedure
- An Ohio Department of Health review confirmed the hospital's surgical protocols are safe and effective
- The surgical team realized the error during the procedure and told the family before Jacks woke up
- The surgical mark remained on the correct leg after the wrong leg had been amputated
- The hospital retrained all of its surgical staff after the surgery
The Left View
NBC News frames the suit as a veteran’s catastrophic injury at the hands of hospital doctors, leading with the complaint’s charge that defendants acted “willfully, wantonly, recklessly, maliciously, and with conscious disregard for the substantial certainty of catastrophic injury.” It highlights that the named surgeon is still licensed in Ohio even after the hospital said involved staffers left their posts, and it dwells on Layne’s description of lost independence in dressing and cooking and on claimed harms including humiliation, permanent disability, and loss of enjoyment of life.
The Right View
Fox News frames the case as an alleged “never event”—wrong-site surgery Layne said “defies explanation”—and stresses his claim of “a complete failure of basic safety procedures” in which “every person in that operating room is responsible,” despite two recorded time-outs, and that “there is simply no excuse.” It gives fuller play to the hospital’s statement that it responded immediately, held those involved accountable, implemented corrective measures, cooperated with the state review, and keeps the patient and family “in our prayers,” and it groups the suit with other high-profile wrong-site operations.
Our Take (balanced)
The left-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is an accountability gap: the complaint’s “conscious disregard” language, paired with the surgeon remaining licensed after the hospital removed involved staff from their positions. The right-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is that this was a documented collapse of universal safeguards—site marking and two time-outs—that the hospital has already labeled avoidable, while a state review, in the hospital’s telling, found remaining protocols “safe and effective.” The central unresolved tension is whether those facts describe willful or reckless individual wrongdoing that would support punitive damages, or a systems breakdown already met with staff removal, retraining, and regulatory review.
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