Man compensated with half a million euros after leg was amputated following diagnostic error in Spanish hospital

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A blockage in an artery was not detected in the emergency department because the ultrasound service was not available at the time

Alfonso Torices

Madrid

Wednesday, 24 December 2025, 07:38

The insurer of Denia Hospital in Spain's Alicante region will have to pay almost half a million euros in compensation to a patient whose right leg had to be amputated in 2023 as a result of a diagnostic error by the emergency doctors which, once it was corrected, made it impossible to perform the surgery that hours earlier would have saved his limb.

A court in Madrid ruled that the hospital would have to pay the compensation, which was the result of a compensation of 389,011 euros plus another 94,000 euros for late payment interest, after partially appreciating the claim for medical error and delay in diagnosis brought on behalf of the injured party by Ica Aznar and Juan Carlos Montealegre, lawyers of 'El Defensor del Paciente'.

The injured party is a man from Alicante who on 6 March 2023, the morning he went to the emergency department of Denia Hospital, was 63 years old and complained of severe pain in his right foot. The doctors who attended him only performed a blood test, discharging him with a diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis and sending him home.

A few hours later, due to the unbearable pain he was still in, he went to hospital again, where, this time, the appropriate diagnostic tests were carried out, consisting of a Doppler ultrasound, which revealed the error in the previous diagnosis, this time diagnosing arterial ischaemia, an obstruction of blood flow in the area derived from an aneurysm. The problem with the delay in the correct diagnosis of the problem is that at that time it was already impossible to revascularise the right lower limb (the technique or surgery required to restore blood flow), so it was necessary to resort to amputation of the right leg above the knee.

No ultrasound service after midday

The judgement states that "the patient was prejudged as a carrier of deep vein thrombosis (...)" without considering that the pain he complained of "was not typical of deep vein thrombosis and, above all, without immediately carrying out a confirmatory diagnostic test (Doppler ultrasound), which would have allowed an accurate diagnosis. In short, it was describing the existence of decreased arterial pulses in the right leg and coldness in the right leg, without ruling out an arterial rather than a venous cause".

The most shocking aspect of this case is that the technique that would have prevented the amputation of the patient's leg is a simple ultrasound scan, a very simple test available in almost any hospital. But the emergency department at Denia Hospital did not carry it out because they did not have the means to do so at the time, because they did not have the ultrasound service available after midday. The patient had to wait for seven hours to be seen, by which time it was already afternoon and the emergency department did not have an ultrasound scanner.

The judge considers that "the performance, on the same day, of the arterial or venous Doppler ultrasound test would have allowed the correct diagnosis to be obtained, as well as the appropriate treatment to be followed, according to the common opinion of the three experts" consulted. However," the ruling went on to say, "The test was not carried out because, according to the operating report of the emergency service of Denia hospital, "We do not have an ultrasound service available after midday and the test was scheduled for the following day."