Amy Herbst, an opera singer, said she has been forced to give up singing after surgery rendered her unable to sing without flatulence.
Herbst said she’s suing the federal government for what she claims was shoddy surgery after she gave birth.
The injuries, she said, were caused at the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
The 33-year-old former singer said nurse-midwife Tiffany Williams ordered an unnecessary episiotomy at the hospital in February 2012, reported the Army Times. It was done without her consent, she added.
In the lawsuit, she and her husband Staff Sgt. James Herbst claimed the procedure damaged her reproductive and digestive systems. The suit seeks $2.5 million for negligence as well as pain, suffering, embarrassment, and a loss of income.
“She is suffering though a very embarrassing and very significant injury, and frankly, the prognosis of a fully successful repair is pretty low,” attorney Charles Allen told Army Times last week.
Allen said she wasn’t asked during the labor process about risks and benefits of the procedure.
“There seemed to be an assumption that they didn’t need to involve the patient in the decision making ... and they were completely wrong, as a matter of law and social responsibility,” Allen said. “The patient has a right to decide what’s done with her body.”
The lawsuit alleges that after she left the hospital, she “began to experience fecal urgency and incontinence, including periodic leaking of stool and excessive flatulence.”
According to The Mirror, she was a mezza soprano with the Nashville Opera Company.
She was slated to perform a production of Madame Butterfly.
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