Change is coming hard for Wayne Wolff, whose left leg was amputated last year after what was supposed to be a routine knee surgery at UCI Medical Center in Orange.
More than eight times, Wolff, 58, has fallen down the stairs of his former two-story house in Perris, forcing him and his wife to move to a single-story home elsewhere in town. They traded their dream house — the site of family barbecues, birthdays and graduation celebrations, where they had replanted every tree and played horseshoes — for a house that still feels foreign to them.
An avid outdoorsman, Wolff once trained his rifle on duck, pheasant, chukar, “anything that flew.” Now Wolff is hesitant to hunt again after he got stuck in the mud alone with his prosthetic. It’s just too risky, he said.
He’s considering selling the Sea Ray ski boat he has owned for 20 years, the “Jungle Cruise,” because he no longer feels safe on the water. That’s especially painful since he was a skilled, lifelong water skier. “Poetry in motion,” said his wife, Lisa, 54.
“The first time I saw him water ski, my jaw hit the bottom of the boat,” she said.
But since the allegedly botched surgery, they’ve had to reconsider their recreational choices.
“It’s a gut punch for sure … (but) you’ve got to know your limitations,” Wolff said.
Lawsuit alleges negligence
The Wolffs are suing the University of California Board of Regents for alleged negligence by the hospital and its head of sports medicine and UC Irvine team doctor, Dean Wang. Attorneys for the Wolffs declined to discuss the legal aspects of the case.
The medical center also declined to comment.
Perhaps the most difficult blow is Wolff can no longer do the job he had held for 30 years, boring tunnels for subways and sewers throughout the United States and Canada. It’s just too dangerous to go down those shafts, where he supervises the electrical construction of the boring equipment.
“If something happened, how would he get out if he can’t move fast?” Lisa said.
‘Didn’t expect this challenge’
Though it’s been a year since his life changed forever, Wolff is still adjusting to his new reality.
“To go in (to the hospital) for an improvement, outpatient operation, I didn’t expect this challenge. I never could have foreseen this outcome,” he said.
In 2024, Wolff was looking for a doctor to operate on his left meniscus, damaged by the wear and tear of an active life. A co-worker recommended Wang and UCI Medical Center, rated among the best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, according to the hospital’s website. The recommendation checked all the boxes for Wolff.
“They were the big shop in town,” he said.
What went wrong?
Wolff was supposed to go home the same day as his surgery, April 3, 2024. But there was a problem.
According to the lawsuit, Wang told Lisa after surgery that he had nicked a vein, which he then cauterized. Days later, doctors discovered Wang actually had severed the artery that supplies blood to the left lower extremity.
It should not have taken days to make that discovery, the lawsuit contends.
Lisa knew immediately something was very wrong, but she said no one listened.
A veteran trauma room nurse by trade, she alerted hospital staff that her husband’s excruciating pain was disproportionate with the arthroscopic surgery. And she knew Wolff had a high threshold for pain.
Once, when he accidentally dropped a wrench on his head while working on a car, he had his wife stitch him up at home — while he was watching a Chargers game — rather than go to the emergency room.
Concerns discounted
But the agony he experienced after surgery was like nothing he ever imagined. Lisa knew immediately what was happening.
“When tissue doesn’t get the nutrients it needs, it hurts, it’s screaming for the nutrients. It’s called ischemia,” she said. Simply put, the leg wasn’t getting any blood. And it was dying.
For days, doctors and nurses discounted Lisa’s concerns, even when she complained that Wolff’s leg was badly swollen, cold to the touch and turning mottled. He also couldn’t move his feet and toes, the suit alleges.
Staff refused her requests for an ultrasound of the leg and dismissed her — even after the pulse disappeared from his foot, according to the suit.
Doctors conducted another surgery and found the artery was cut and the leg would need to be amputated. Lisa had been right all along, but her vindication was far from satisfying.
She felt “unheard, dismissed, frustrated.”
“It broke my heart seeing him in that much pain and I couldn’t do anything about it,” said Lisa, choking back tears. “That’s what I do for a living, I was trying for my best friend. … I just wanted to be heard.”
‘It was devastating’
Doctors broke the news to Lisa about the need to take her husband’s leg in an empty surgical waiting room.
“It was devastating. I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe,” she remembered. “I was hysterically crying … uncontrollably sobbing.”
Then she had to tell Wolff, who was recovering from surgery, that his leg would have to go.
“It was awful,” Lisa said. “He’s so active and now our lives were going to completely, 100 percent going to change forever. And the fact I had to tell him wasn’t fair.”
Wolff took the news with a bit of stoicism and faith that God had a plan for him.
“I was honestly thinking, I’m going to make the best of it. Things are challenging, I’ll meet the challenge and hit it head on,” he said. “God steers the ship.”
His resolve was tested when, days later, his leg was removed by a team of surgeons and he awoke with a bruised stump.
“It was an eye-opener and reality check for sure, just trying to figure out what’s it going to take to live like this.” Wolff said.
Gone were the days of just jumping into the shower and climbing down tunnels.
“Everything is 10 times harder and takes 10 times longer,” he said. “You’re not supposed to hate and I’ve adhered to it as best I can. If somebody had done their job, I’d be not talking to you right now.”
Lisa, who no longer works in a hospital but teaches nursing at two local colleges, said she uses her negative experience at UCI Medical Center in her classroom lessons on how nurses can improve.
“I wouldn’t want somebody (else) to go through the living hell we’ve been through the last year.”