How Did a Des Plaines Dentist Lose This Sharp Tool in Her Patient's Stomach?

DES PLAINES, IL — When a Des Plaines dentist lost track of a sharp dental tool she was using during a patient's root canal two years go, she should have let gut instinct help her find it.

Her patient's gut instinct, that is. Because that's where the instrument — called a barbed breach — ended up, requiring emergency surgery and a hospital stay for her patient.

Now that hard-to-swallow series of events is costing Dr. Beata Kozar-Warchalowska $675,000, the amount awarded to her longtime patient, Janus Pawlowicz, for having to stomach the consequences surrounding the misplaced tool, WLS-TV reports.

Pawlowicz's lawyer told the TV station that Kozar-Warchalowska informed Pawlowicz, of Hoffman Estates, that she couldn't locate the instrument after the root canal procedure and she would call him when it turned up. The tool, however, turned up a few days later when Pawlowicz began having abdominal pain caused by the barbed breach falling down his throat and lodging in his stomach, the report stated.

Doctors surgically removed the tool, but Pawlowicz's lawyers convinced a jury that the entire situation could have been avoided in the first place. The patient's legal team argued that Kozar-Warchalowska should have used a dental dam as preventive measure to stop foreign objects sliding down Pawlowicz's gullet during the procedure, according to the report.

Pawlowicz told WLS-TV that he still suffers from the after effects of the 2014 surgery.

More via WLS-TV

PHOTO: This dental tool, called a barbed breach, had to be surgically removed from Janus Pawlowicz's stomach after it slid down his throat during a 2014 root canal. (WLS-TV)

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