A court in Virginia awarded a man $500,000 in damages after his doctors brutally mocked him while he was sedated for a routine colonoscopy.
Before going under for the surgery, the man — only identified in court documents as D.B. — started recording audio on his phone. When he woke up and listened to what was said, he was shocked, The Washington Post reported.
Immediately after the man fell into his anesthesia-induced slumber, the insults started flying.
“After five minutes of talking to you in pre-op I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit,” the anesthesiologist told the sedated man.
The anesthesiologist, Tiffany Ingham, called the man a “big wimp” and mused about the man’s sexual orientation after she noted that he attended Mary Washington College, a formerly all-women’s school.
Ingham was joined in the recording, which was heard by jurors as part of a three-day trial last week, by other doctors and assistants, who referred to the man as a “retard” and made comments about a rash on his penis that implied he had syphilis or tuberculosis, according to the Courthouse News Service.
Ingham’s assistant pointed to the rash, and the anesthesiologist told her not to touch it because she might get “syphilis on your arm or something,” but then eased the assistant’s fears by saying “it’s probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you’ll be all right.”
Another doctor in the room responded, “as long as its not Ebola, you’re OK.”
Farid Khairzada, a juror in the case, told the Post the $500,000 number came as a compromise between the jurors because the man’s attorney wanted $1.75 million, and there was one juror who thought the man deserved nothing.
“We finally came to a conclusion that we have to give him something, just to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Khairzada said.
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