Thaindian News

London, Aug 23 (IANS) A US doctor is being sued for amputating a truck driver’s penis without his permission, a media report said Tuesday.

The doctor has defended his actions claiming he saved the man’s life.

John Patterson, who performed the surgery in 2007, said that during the operation on Phillip Seaton, 64, he discovered a rare and deadly cancer.

“What I saw was not a penis. What I saw was cancer,” Patterson told the court in Shelby County, Kentucky.

He said he removed less than an inch of Seaton’s penis. The rest of the penis was amputated by another doctor later, said the doctor’s lawyer, Clay Robinson.

However, Seaton was appalled at the doctor’s decision to amputate without consulting him, or giving him the opportunity to seek a second opinion.

His wife Deborah is also a plaintiff in the suit, which seeks unspecified damages for “loss of service, love and affection”, the Mail said.

In earlier testimony, Seaton described the moments after being told part of his penis had been removed.

“I pulled the dressing down, and I didn’t see nothing,” said Seaton. “Then I came out of the restroom and I said, “I’m getting the hell out of this damn hospital.”

Patterson testified that the cancer prevented him from inserting a catheter into Seaton’s urethra, and he was concerned about the possibility of kidney damage from urinary retention.

Although his wife was in the hospital waiting room, the doctor said he did not consult her because she had not accompanied her husband to office visits or into the pre-operation area, which he thought was unusual, according to the newspaper.

Seaton testified that if the doctor had consulted her after finding the cancer, she would have advised him to halt the surgery and wake up her husband.

“It’s his body,” Mail quoted her as saying. “He should have a say in it.”

Seaton’s lawyer, Kevin George, said the document had been read to Seaton because he cannot read. The jury of eight-women and six-men was shown graphic images.

George presented four photographs of Seaton’s groin saying, “You can see there’s nothing there.” He told jurors that Seaton “doesn’t feel like a man anymore”.

Robinson offered up a photograph of the cancerous tip of a penis - not Seaton’s.

“The spark is gone out of his life. He used to be such a happy person,” Seaton’s brother David Seaton said.