CRIPPLING MISTAKE An Army veteran is suing a Veterans Affairs hospital in Connecticut for allegedly leaving a scalpel in his abdomen.

Is it our imagination or are retained objects getting absurdly bigger? Last week we told you about the 8-inch forceps an obstetrician-gynecologist allegedly left inside a patient.

Now comes word of another supersized retained object — a scalpel that a U.S. Army veteran claims was used in the prostatectomy he underwent 4 years earlier at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Connecticut.

Glenford Turner, 61, returned to the same VA hospital last March complaining of dizziness, according to the federal lawsuit he filed last week. An MRI had to be stopped when Mr. Turner experienced excruciating abdominal pain — reportedly because the magnetic field caused the metallic object to migrate. An X-ray showed a scalpel in his abdomen. Mr. Turner underwent another surgery to remove the scalpel.

The lawsuit accuses the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs of negligence and seeks unspecified compensatory damages. Attorneys for both sides did not respond to requests for comment.

Audra Franchini