A Florida man Harvey Sultzer has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit claiming his wife died after a da Vinci surgical robot procedure. Harvey Sultzer, the husband of late Sandra Sultzer claimed his wife suffered health complications following the surgical procedure.

According to the suit filed on February 6, Sandra underwent an operation at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital in September 2021 to treat her colon cancer. The da Vinci robotic system, a multi-armed, remote-controlled device, was used for the surgery. The electrosurgical instruments are manufactured by ISI.

Sandra Sultzer had abdominal pain and fever before dying of injuries caused by the da Vinci surgical device. The lawsuit did not name the hospital as a defendant in the civil case, but it did name Intuitive Surgical Inc. (ISI), which makes the robotic device, accusing it of negligence and product liability.

According to the lawsuit, Sultzer suffered a burn that caused a rupture in her small intestines during surgery and needed additional surgeries to close it.

The lawsuit further alleged that Intuitive Surgical was aware of the da Vinci system’s insulation issues, which can cause electricity leakage into the patient’s body, but failed to inform the hospital and staff.

In the months following the surgery, Sultzer experienced abdominal pain and fever. According to the lawsuit, Sultzer underwent several medical procedures due to her injuries.

“The injury suffered by Mrs. Sultzer caused her pain and emotional distress,” the lawsuit says. “Mrs. Sultzer incurred expense of medical care, hospitalization, treatment, nursing care and treatment, and the expense of rehabilitative care and treatment.”

Sultzer died in February 2022, and the lawsuit claimed it was a “direct and imminent result of the injuries she suffered” from the da Vinci device.

“Had ISI safely designed its product so that stray electrical energy would not burn the insides of patients without the knowledge or control of the operating surgeons, the small intestine injury to Mrs. Sultzer would not have happened, and she would not have died,” according to the suit.

Intuitive Surgical had received thousands of reports citing “dangerous injuries,” including internal organ burns, that were allegedly caused by the robot’s electrical discharge, the lawsuit says.

The company was also named in a number of liability lawsuits across the United States that claimed patients were injured or died after surgery with the da Vinci system, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission report. Those cases have trial dates scheduled this year.

The lawsuit also alleged that Intuitive Surgical “bullies hospitals and physicians to purchase and use the robot.”

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