Breast Cancer and Lung Cancer No Match for this: Woman's leg amputated by mistake following false cancer diagnosis

American Scofflaw
Word to the wise: Be careful of what doctors tell you to cut off following a cancer diagnosis. Submitting to cancer surgery can cost you an arm... or a leg.

Increasingly, cancer surgeons are recommending that woman have their healthy breasts surgically removed as a way to prevent cancer -- even when those women have no cancer! But recently, an even more bizarre story surfaced: According to a BBC report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/...), a UK woman had her leg amputated by a cancer surgeon who claimed her leg showed signs of a malignant cancer tumor. She naively agreed to undergo the surgery and awoke with quite a shock: Not only was her leg missing, but the doctor told her she never had cancer in the first place.

I'm trying to figure out who made the bigger goof here: The doctor who claimed there was cancer, or the patient who agreed to let a doctor amputate her leg without getting a second opinion...

Here's what the doctor reportedly said upon her regaining consciousness: "I've got a bombshell to tell you - I'm very sorry, but we shouldn't have taken the leg off."

At that point, I think the patient should have picked up that amputated leg and beat the snot out of the surgeon with it. But that's just me...