A surgical robot burned a hole in a Florida woman’s small intestine during surgery, injuring her and eventually causing her death — this according new lawsuit filed by her husband.
According to the legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Boca Raton native Sandra Sultzer passed away at the age of 78 in 2022 following a procedure to treat her colon cancer … which was performed using a ‘da Vinci’ robot — a 4-armed machine activated by a doctor operating a camera and a surgeon steering the robot’s arms using a joystick and foot pedals.
Sultzer’s husband claims the robot is designed to cut incisions as small as the size of a dime … and the precise movements are supposed to minimize blood loss and trauma to the body from larger cuts made during traditional surgical procedures.
The suit alleges some of the rubber sleeves around the arms had cracks which allowed electrical currents to escape … and the stray energy essentially burned Sandra’s body tissues during her September 2021 procedure.
Her husband claims the burning of her internal organs happened without the surgical team even fully knowing what was happening at the time.
The lawsuit alleges that Intuitive Surgical Inc. — the company that makes the da Vinci robot — failed to adequately warn of these risks … claiming it should have known of the risks from “thousands of injury and defect reports” about the device.
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He also claims the product was not designed in a safe way or tested enough to avoid the burn risks.
Sultzer’s husband is seeking unspecified damages, including punitives.
