EXCLUSIVE I went for surgery for back pain and woke up paralyzed from the neck down thanks to bungling doctors READ MORE: Doctors took out the wrong organ during my surgery By Luke Andrews Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Published: 17:03, 1 October 2024 | Updated: 17:31, 1 October 2024 e-mail View comments A man who went for spinal surgery has been left completely paralyzed due to bungling doctors. James Spangler, 54, was told the operation would fix the burning pain in his neck and pins and needles in his limbs caused by a condition called spinal stenosis.
But when he woke up after the three-hour surgery at WellSpan York Hospital in Pennsylvania , the father-of-three found he couldn't move anything except his toes. Scans later revealed that doctors had wrongly inserted screws into his spinal cord , which controls movements in the body. He has now been awarded $24million in compensation after being forced to quit his job as a mechanic at Harley Davidson, which he had held for 26 years, and needing his wife Wendy to care for him 24/7.
James Spangler, 58, pictured following the botched surgery that left him unable to move anything except his toes The family's lawyer Iddo Harel, from Ross Feller Casey , told DailyMail.com: 'He went from being a mechanic the day before to a quadriplegic the day after. 'Mr Spangler is the kind of man who has worked very, very hard his whole life in manual professions and never took anything from anybody.
'But now he needs his wife Wendy's.