A
former patient of Ben Carson, the retired neursurgeon and GOP
presidential candidate, claims he is a “liar” who ruined her life by
botching surgery on her brain tumor. “I regret ever having met him,”
Karly Bailey told TheWrap. “I wish I didn’t.”
Bailey,
who was 9 years old when she went under Carson’s knife in 1995, claimed
the future candidate went against her family’s wishes by removing her
brain tumor in its entirety, despite her parents’ repeated demands that
the growth be only partially removed due to its proximity to the brain
stem.
“I made the worst decision of my life when I agreed to let him operate on my daughter,” her father, John Bailey, told TheWrap.
According to the family, the operation left Karly, now 27, paralyzed on her right side and suffering from vertical nystagmus,
which causes severe dizziness. When she finally went back to school
after more than seven months of intense rehab, she was so disfigured
that she was bullied by fellow students.
“She was called a freak because of her face,” John Bailey said. “She had to learn how to write with her left hand.”
Bailey
also alleged that Carson made numerous “misstatements” of medical facts
in his sworn affidavit in an attempt to cover up his medical mistakes.
Carson’s representatives did not reply to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The
Baileys first filed a claim against Carson and Johns Hopkins Hospital
with the Maryland Healthcare Alternative Dispute Resolution Office in
2009. After much legal wrangling, the case was dismissed this past June;
it is currently under appeal.
According to a story last week in the National Enquirer,
titled “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!”
Carson has been the subject of at least at least six malpractice
lawsuits over the years.
While the Baileys stand by what they told the Enquirer, others dismiss the story.
Merryl
Reynolds, who according to the Enquirer “accused Carson of negligence
during 2010 spinal surgery on her 15-year-old son, Austin,” and was
quoted saying her son “is now paralyzed from the waist down,” told
TheWrap she had no idea where the publication got the quote and didn’t
even know about the article’s existence. While Reynolds confirmed that
Carson operated on her son, she told TheWrap she would not “describe him
that way.”
During an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity
last Wednesday, the GOP candidate addressed the Enquirer story, saying,
“It’s pretty astonishing, and some of those cases never went anywhere.”
Of
the Baileys, the candidate added, “You know, they’ve been threatening
for years. They said, somehow, ‘You guys have got to pay us money, or
we’re going to the media, and we’re going to ruin your career.’ What a
bunch of crap. I don’t bother with that stuff.”
Karly
said she was shocked to learn that Carson was not only running for
president but touting his resume as a brain surgeon to appeal to voters.
“The
general public does not know who Ben Carson is,” said Bailey. “I want
them to know the kind of person he is. I used to ride horses. I was good
at it. After the operation I couldn’t even stand up.”
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