Maine Woman Awarded $17M After Bladder Removed in Error

A Maine woman who went in for what was supposed to be routine surgery for a benign ovarian cyst has been awarded $17 million after doctors removed her bladder instead. A Kennebec County jury handed the sum to Emily Mitchell following a two-week medical malpractice trial against Northern Light Inland Hospital and its parent system, in what's said to be the county's largest such verdict, per Fox News. Jurors found the hospital liable for an "irreversible injury" that left Mitchell without enough healthy bladder tissue to repair the organ.

After the botched 2023 procedure, Mitchell spent eight months with tubes draining urine out of her kidneys and endured repeated infections and other complications before surgeons in Massachusetts built a new bladder from part of her small intestine. Nearly three years later, she must now catheterize herself multiple times a day and continues specialist care. The award covers medical costs, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and permanent impairment.

State officials note that Northern Light Inland Hospital closed in 2025 amid financial pressures. The Bangor Daily News reports that this was the fourth complaint against the hospital system just this year in which a jury found it to be negligent in its care. "This verdict won't undo the pain our clients have endured, but it does offer something they haven't had in a long time: closure," Mitchell's legal team said of her and her husband, per a release. "They can finally put this chapter behind them."