Back in 2014, Chicago resident Janus Pawlowicz went to his dentist at Gentle Dental SVC for a standard root canal procedure.
Once the procedure was over, however, Pawlowicz noticed that his dentist was peering around his person, patting his clothes, and looking around her tool tray. The dentist, Dr. Beata Kozar-Warchalowska, knew that one of her tools was missing and couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.
Even after Dr. Warchalowska’s search proved to be futile, she just sent Pawlowicz home and said she would call him when she found it.
Pawlowicz never heard from her in the four days following.
That was when he started experiencing terrible stomach pains. Pawlowicz’s wife became concerned and told her husband to go to the hospital.
It was there that the doctors found Dr. Warchalowska’s missing dental tool: a barbed breach that had gotten stuck in his stomach, causing bowel obstruction.
The tool was very quickly removed, but the damage had already been done. Now, two years later, Pawlowicz still experiences pain from the damage the tool had caused.
He and his wife filed a lawsuit against Gentle Dental and received a $675,000 settlement for the incident, all of which could have been prevented had Pawlowicz’s dentist simply used a dental dam during the root canal procedure.
Dr. Warchalowska has since been punished by the state. The dental group has not responded to this lawsuit at all.
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