In less than two hours, a jury decided that no medical negligence was committed in a penile implant procedure that left Daniel Metzgar, a truck driver from Newark, Del., with an eight month erection, according to a lawsuit.
Metzgar opted for the prosthesis in 2009 to improve his love life after diabetes left him with erectile dysfunction, but he claimed his testicles swelled up to the size of a volleyball shortly after he had the surgery done and was left with a constant erection.
He had a three-piece inflatable penile implant, consisting of inflatable cylinders inside the shaft of the penis, a fluid reservoir under the abdominal wall and a pump inside his scrotum.
During the week-long trial, Metzgar explained how the erection got in the way of his daily life. Family and friends gave him a hard time about it, people stared at him, and strangers threatened him. He started wearing baggy clothes to disguise his situation, and couldn't bend over to pick the newspaper or ride his motorcycle.
It wasn't until a family trip to Niagara Falls in August 2010, when tubing from the device punctured Metzgar's scrotum, and he finally made the decision to have the prosthesis removed.
Attorney Michael C. Heyden had suggested to the jury that Dr. Thomas J. Desperito and his former partners didn't review hospital charts informing them that Daniel Metzgar's penis was swollen and erect immediately following the December 2009 implant. He said Desperito didn't see his client for almost two months following the surgery, which led to more complications.
However, Desperito's attorney, Colleen D. Shields, said the hospital charts were prepared by people unfamiliar with penile implants. She said Desperito and his former partners were familiar with the prosthesis installation and were certain Metzgar's member was not erect following the procedure.
Shields said that complications are a risk with any surgery, and suggested Metzgar should've known something was wrong after the surgery when he claimed his scrotum swelled, but he didn't report anything until April. When Dr. Desperito told him the implant needed to come out, he didn't do anything because he claimed he didn't have the $10,000 the doctor was asking for since he had lost his insurance, and it wasn't until the tubing broke through his flesh, that he actually got the device removed.
After the jury deliberated, they reached a verdict and found Doctor Thomas Desperito not guilty of medical negligence.
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