Maine woman awarded $17M after bladder accidentally removed in routine cyst surgery

Emily Mitchell went in for surgery on a March morning in 2023 expecting to have a benign ovarian cyst removed. The imaging had shown it was growing, and her doctors at Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville, Maine, recommended the procedure. It was routine work—the kind of gynecologic surgery performed thousands of times a year in hospitals across the country. She did not come out with the surgery she had scheduled.

Instead, when her condition deteriorated in the hours after the operation, she was rushed to another hospital for emergency intervention. Surgeons there made a discovery that would reshape the rest of her life: her bladder had been removed during the original procedure. Pathology confirmed it—the tissue taken from her body was full-thickness bladder tissue, not cyst. There was no way to put it back. The surgeons examined what remained and found insufficient healthy bladder tissue to reconstruct or repair the organ. The damage was permanent.

For the next eight months, Mitchell's body was managed through bilateral nephrostomy tubes—thin plastic tubes surgically placed through the skin of her lower back and into both kidneys, allowing urine to drain directly into external bags she wore attached to her body. During those months, she endured recurring urinary tract infections, kidney infections, multiple additional medical procedures, and complications that compounded the original catastrophe. Her life became a series of medical appointments and management of a body that no longer functioned as it should.

Eventually, she was referred to surgeons in Massachusetts who specialized in complex reconstruction. They performed an intricate procedure to create what's called a neobladder—using a portion of her small intestine to fashion a replacement organ that could store and release urine. It was an extraordinary feat of surgical skill, but it could not undo what had happened. Nearly three years after that March morning in 2023, Mitchell continues to live with the permanent effects of the error. She must insert a catheter multiple times each day to drain the reconstructed bladder. She requires ongoing treatment from specialists. Her body will never be what it was.

Last Thursday, a Kennebec County jury awarded Mitchell $17 million in damages—the largest medical malpractice verdict in the county's history. The jury found Northern Light Inland Hospital and Northern Light Health liable for what their own attorneys had described as "one of the most devastating surgical errors imaginable." The damages covered past and future medical expenses, her suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, and permanent impairment. Her attorney, Susan A. Faunce, said in a statement that the verdict offered something Mitchell had needed for a long time: acknowledgment. "This verdict won't undo the pain our clients have endured," Faunce said, "but it does offer something they haven't had in a long time: closure."

The hospital where the error occurred is no longer in operation. Northern Light Inland Hospital closed its doors in May 2025, after more than 80 years of serving the Waterville community. The healthcare system cited immense pressure from higher operational costs, unsustainably low reimbursement rates, and a tight labor market as reasons for the closure. Whether the surgical error and its legal aftermath contributed to that decision remains unclear. What is clear is that the institution where Mitchell's life was altered no longer exists, and she must now navigate the rest of her life with a body remade by surgeons trying to repair what should never have been broken.