This high-stakes lawsuit will go down to the wire.
German “OT” Ortiz wants $800,000 from the heart surgeon he blames for leaving a 57-inch “guide wire” stretching from his leg to his chest in 2005. The 70-year-old plaintiff claims he’d unknowingly been carrying the foreign object inside his body since it was left there during a 2005 heart operation in which it was used to guide a catheter from his thigh to his chest.
Defense attorneys for cardiologist Mark Taylor say their client was unaware Ortiz was sewn up with the wire still inside him and suggest another physician may have left it there nearly 15 years ago.
Ortiz was unaware the wire was inside him for a decade, until another doctor spotted in during a 2015 X-ray prior to a blood clot removal, according to the Law Vegas Review Journal.
The 22-year-old Air Force veteran, who moved to Sin City in the late 1980s, had all but 20 inches of the wire removed in 2018. That section is still embedded in his thigh.
Allegations included in Ortiz’s lawsuit against Taylor include medical malpractice, professional negligence and emotional distress. His legal team says their client has endured “pain” and “anxiety” as a result of the wire found inside Ortiz and argue its presence increases the probability of future blood clots.
Taylor’s team reportedly contends their client “Met the standard of care and in no way was negligent or uncareful in his cardiology.”
