A bishop who was left with gruesome life-changing injuries after surgeons botched a kidney transplant has said he’s ‘thankful to be alive’ and able to enjoy another Christmas with his congregation.
Bishop Larry Jones was given the transplant last November at Loma Linda Medical Center in California after his daughter donated her kidney to him.
But Jones, 51, says the surgeons let him leave the hospital with urine still leaking from his bladder into his abdomen.
The hospital’s failed attempts to fix the problem gave Jones an infection that led to all his fingers, both his feet, and part of his penis being amputated, according to court documents filed by his lawyers at San Bernardino Superior Court in September.
But the Bishop admits he’s lucky to still be around to see another Christmas with his family and his flock.
‘I’m thankful to be alive, to be able to see another Christmas here with the church. To see the green trees and the earth and the dirt,’ said Jones.
Botched: Bishop Larry Jones went in for a standard kidney transplant in November last year which resulted in his fingers, feet, and parts of his penis being amputated
Jones’s body began to ‘shut down’ because no oxygen was able to reach his hands and feet. His friend shared this gruesome video on Twitter of Jones’s blackened dead fingers hanging off his hand
Jones is now wheelchair-bound and is suing the hospital for an undisclosed amount to ‘shed light’ on its practices. According to the lawsuit, surgeons had cut Jones’s ureter, a tube connecting the kidney and the bladder, during surgery
‘We just give the whole day to Jesus Christ on Christmas. I’m thankful just to be able to worship once again in this land that God created.
‘I’ve been able to learn to enjoy being alive. I’ve been able to learn to thank the Lord for all this fresh air that we’re breathing, though it’s borrowed.
‘We go to church and come together. We try to have everything at Christmas, whatever the congregation wants, if we have the money, we go get it.’
The Inland Empire preacher, who is now wheelchair-bound, is suing the hospital for an unspecified sum to ‘shed light’ on its practices.
‘I started to get scared towards the end. I feared for my life,’ said Jones. ‘I felt like they were killing me.
‘They didn’t hook up the bladder right, so it leaked. They sent me home and I was in pain. I went to bed and started feeling this pain in my stomach real bad.
‘My body started to shut down, my kidney, the liver. No oxygen is getting to my hands, no oxygen is getting to my feet,’ he said.
‘I thought the hospital would know what to do. We shouldn’t even have to ask. If you’re the doctor, that’s what you do. If you’re the one connecting the tubes together, that’s what you went to school for. And then it comes out they’re doing something totally different.’
Jones, a bishop at Crossover Outreach Church in San Bernardino, says he will continue preaching from his wheelchair. ‘That’s not going to stop. That’s going to go till the day I die,’ he said
Bishop Jones’s wife April (left) was allegedly told by hospital staff that her husband was not going to make it on the same day her mother had died from multiple sclerosis
The day after his transplant, Bishop told doctors he was still in pain. They performed scans which showed a sliced tube inside him was leaking urine into his abdomen.
According to the lawsuit, surgeons had cut Jones’s ureter, a tube connecting the kidney and the bladder, during surgery.
However, the hospital waited two days to fix the bungled surgery, the court documents said.
Jones was discharged on December 9, but continued to deteriorate, and went back into Loma Linda Medical Center on December 30 with ‘severe septic shock’ due to Acinetobacter, a hospital borne infection, he claims in his lawsuit.
That night a doctor allegedly told Jones’s wife, April, that her husband would not make it through the night.
To make matters worse, April’s mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, had died that same morning in her nursing home aged 73.
‘Everyone knew that I had lost my mother that morning, and he told me that my husband was going to die,’ she said/
‘He told me: “Your husband is not going to make it through another hour.” I just went over to my husband and told him he had to make it out of there.’
Jones’s daughter Stormy (pictured before the surgery) offered to donate her kidney to her father. Jones says the ‘worst part’ of his ordeal is that ‘my daughter gave up her kidney so I could live, and now they’re playing with it’
Above is the Loma Linda Medical center where doctors allegedly performed the botched surgery. A representative of the hospital told DailyMail.com: ‘We reserve comment until we have received and analyzed the lawsuit’
Surgeons were then forced to amputate his feet and fingers, and remove part of his penis.
Jones’ lawyer, Ben Mieselas, posted a gruesome video on Twitter of the pastor with blackened dead fingers hanging off his hand.
Jones’s wife April, who was by his bedside the whole time, says the hospital showed a ‘negligent lack of treatment’.
‘Me and my daughter used to take his feet and connect it back to the bone and wrap it because it was separating,’ she said.
‘You make a huge mistake. I mean, this is a huge one…I never in a million years could imagine that my husband was going to lose his fingers and his feet.
The bishop said the day after the amputation, nurses changed his bandages with no painkillers.
‘When they cut my feet off they just wrapped them. They came in the next day they ripped off the bandages without any pain medication.
‘If you’ve ever had your feet cut off, you’ve got a whole bunch of nerves there. As they were ripping the bandages off it was like a whole bunch of knives sticking and sticking into you.’
Jones was rushed back to the hospital days after his surgery and had developed ‘severe septic shock’ due to Acinetobacter, a hospital borne infection, he claims in his lawsuit. Jones is due to get a pair of prosthetic legs a few days after Christmas
Jones is due to get prosthetic legs and says ‘the next thing is they’ll get to work on my fingers. So it’s coming together.’
Jones was back in hospital in September for a biopsy, after his new kidney was damaged from the septic shock he suffered in December.
‘The kidney was doing really well until he had the septic shock. It was a good 24-year-old kidney. Now it’s functioning, but they had to do a biopsy to see how it’s doing,’ said April.
‘That’s the worst part of it,’ said Jones. ‘My daughter gave up her kidney so I could live, and now they’re playing with it.’
Meiselas, from the law firm Geragos and Geragos, said the hospital ‘callously disregarded’ the pastor’s life, and the lawsuit was needed to protect other patients.
‘It’s shedding light on what’s taken place at Loma Linda,’ he said. ‘How they’ve callously disregarded his life so that other patients there recognize their patients’ rights so they can be advocates for themselves or that they can reach out to advocates so that this doesn’t happen to them.’
The preacher had been on dialysis after suffering from kidney problems for years. He said that when his daughter, Stormy, offered to donate her kidney to him, it seemed like his problems would be over.
‘I trust in the cross, I’m a bishop,’ said Jones. ‘When I came to Loma Linda, I looked at the cross on that building and I trusted that. But a cross can go either way. Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but the cross was also a place of torture.’
Jones, who preaches at the Crossover Outreach Church in San Bernardino, was pastor to some of the victims of the 2015 San Bernardino shootings, and led vigils at his church.
Jones, who preaches at the Crossover Outreach Church in San Bernardino (pictured) was pastor to some of the victims of the 2015 San Bernardino shootings, and led vigils at his church
Jones added that he will continue preaching from his wheelchair. ‘That’s not going to stop. That’s going to go till the day I die,’ he said.
But he may not be wheelchair-bound forever, Jones said, as he is due to get a pair of prosthetic legs a few days after Christmas.
‘They’re still working on them but I tried some last week and took steps.
‘Sometimes we’re not thankful for those feet, but they play a major part in life when it’s time to go somewhere,’ Jones quipped.
‘The next thing is they’ll get to work on my fingers. So it’s coming together.’
Loma Linda Medical Center said: ‘We reserve comment until we have received and analyzed the lawsuit. We will respond appropriately at that time.’
Jones is currently trying to raise $400,000 for his medical bills through a GoFundMe page.