Woman undergone operation to remove a toilet brush stuck in her bottom for 5 years

The six-inch piece of plastic toilet-brush handle became embedded in her buttock after a drunken fall at a friend's house in 2005. Mrs Corton, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, visited Lincoln County Hospital the night of accident, but was sent home with painkillers after doctors could not find anything wrong.

Mrs Corton spent the next two years trying to convince medics that the handle was buried in the flesh of her buttock. She made visits to Grantham and Lincoln hospitals and received an X-ray scan, but nothing was found. An inquest heard that the brush handle wasn't detected until 2007, when Mrs Corton had an MRI scan.

That year two operations to remove the item proved unsuccessful and tragedy struck during much riskier surgery at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre in June last year when Mrs Corton died from huge blood loss.

In a narrative verdict, West Lincolnshire Coroner Stuart Fisher criticised United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, saying: "The failure to pursue further enquiries was a serious failure. If further examinations had been carried out I have no doubt Mrs Corton would be here today. Mrs Corton's quality of life was dire and almost unliveable."

In a statement, United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust said: "The facts of Mrs Corton's case were not made absolutely clear to us when she came to our A&E departments, however we accept that at the second presentation we should have done more to ascertain exactly what had happened.

"This was a very unusual case and an isolated incident."

Husband Peter Corton said: "Cindy got a very poor service from the NHS.

"I'm sure she would have got better treatment in foreign countries."


/Metro.co.uk/