A laparoscopic hysterectomy is a minimally invasive surgery to remove the uterus, involving three to four small cuts in the abdomen and a thin tube with a light and camera to help the doctor navigate through the cut and see inside on a screen. This procedure is done for a variety of reasons including severe or ongoing pelvic pain, heavy or painful bleeding, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, or uterine, cervical or ovarian cancer.
The recovery for this surgery typically involves discharge from the hospital within 24 hours and four to six weeks of at home recovery.
A known risk of this procedure is injury to surrounding organs, one of those organs being the ureter and bladder. When this happens, it is of the utmost importance for a surgeon to quickly recognize the injury to repair it in a timely manner. If this type of injury is left unrepaired, urine can leak into the abdomen, causing severe inflammation, blockage, or even a fistula. Only once the acute inflammation settles, which can take weeks or even months, major reconstructive surgery is required.
In this case, our client came out of her laparoscopic hysterectomy with a completely severed ureter and a bladder injury, because the surgeon injured her ureter during the procedure and then failed to recognize it, consult a urologist, or repair it in time. The damage progressed to a complete ureteral transection, meaning the tube carrying urine from her kidney to her bladder was cut through entirely. The result was constant urine leakage and the need for corrective surgery.
The Townsley Law Firm represented her and recovered a settlement of over $475,000.
A Ureteral Injury Is a Known Risk. Failing to Catch and Fix It Is Negligence.
Ureteral injury is a recognized risk of hysterectomy, which is exactly why surgeons are expected to guard against it, recognize it when it happens, and address it promptly. The ureters run very close to the surgical field during a hysterectomy, so protecting them requires careful technique and clear identification of the anatomy. When an injury does occur, the standard of care calls for recognizing it, responding immediately, and consulting a urologist when the injury is beyond the operating surgeon’s scope.
Not every ureteral injury is malpractice. What moves this case into negligence is the combination of two failures: the poor technique that caused the injury, and the failure to timely consult a urologist or properly address the damage once it was done. A ureteral injury caught and repaired during the original surgery often resolves well. One that goes unrecognized and untreated becomes a far more serious problem.
That is what happened here. The injury was not identified and corrected when it should have been, and it progressed to a complete transection and bladder injury.
What a Complete Ureteral Transection Does to a Patient
A complete ureteral transection means urine has no normal path from the kidney to the bladder, so it leaks into the body or out of it, which is both physically distressing and dangerous if left unaddressed. For our client, this meant constant urine leakage, a condition that is painful, disruptive to every part of daily life, and a source of significant emotional distress.
Beyond the immediate leakage, an untreated or delayed ureteral injury can threaten kidney function, because urine backing up or leaking rather than draining properly can damage the kidney over time. Correcting the damage required additional surgery, a corrective procedure that would not have been necessary had the injury been recognized and repaired during the original operation.
The cascade of harm here — constant leakage, multiple surgeries, prolonged recovery, and lasting suffering — all flowed from an injury that went unaddressed rather than being managed the way the standard of care requires.
Why the Failure to Consult a Urologist Matters
Calling in a urologist promptly when a ureteral injury occurs is part of the standard of care, and the failure to do so is a distinct act of negligence separate from causing the injury itself. A urologist is a specialist equipped to evaluate and repair ureteral and bladder injuries. When a surgeon injures the ureter during a hysterectomy and the situation calls for that expertise, timely consultation is how the injury gets properly assessed and repaired before it worsens.
Delaying or failing to bring in that specialist allows a repairable injury to progress. In this case, the delayed intervention is part of what allowed the damage to reach a complete transection with bladder involvement. The surgeon’s responsibility did not end at recognizing the limits of the situation; it included getting the right specialist involved in time to make a difference.
The injury itself is a known risk of this procedure. What turned it into lasting harm was poor surgical technique combined with a failure to act on the damage once it occurred. She endured unnecessary pain, multiple surgeries, and lasting physical and emotional suffering.
