Seven years of abdominal pain that no doctor could explain.
Jana Petriganova DeGregoris, of Scarsdale, New York, is a cardiothoracic surgery nurse specialist and has worked in the Mount Sinai system since 2013. She knows operating rooms from the inside. Even so, she lived for years with discomfort that no one could identify, never imagining that the answer was inside her own body.
According to the lawsuit filed on September 24 in Manhattan Supreme Court, a surgical needle about 3,8 centimeters long had been left in her abdomen. The document alleges that it may have been forgotten during one of two operations: the C-section on June 28, 2018, or the abdominoplasty with hernia repair on November 17, 2021.
The discovery came only on October 14, 2025, when a CT scan revealed the object, and she had to undergo another surgery to have it removed.
She and her husband, Gerard, are now suing the hospital and doctors Isabel Blumberg, Philip Torina, and Scott Nguyen, seeking compensation for the pain and injuries, with no amount specified.
The hospital and doctors have not responded publicly, and there has been no court ruling. If a needle can go unnoticed inside someone who works at the very hospital, what chance do the rest of the patients have?
