Bangor doctor, hospital sued after mistakenly operating on the wrong foot

 St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor. (2011 Google Street View) A Bangor doctor and the hospital where he practiced are being sued by a patient over a surgery that was mistakenly performed on the wrong foot. Randy Hicks, of Milford, and his wife filed a civil complaint Wednesday in Penobscot County Superior Court alleging medical negligence against Acadia Foot & Ankle doctor Adam Darcy, along with St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor and its parent company Covenant Health. The [wrong site surgery occurred in July 2024](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/02/20/a-bangor-doctor-operated-on-the-wrong-foot-7-years-later-he-did-it-again/), when Hicks was admitted to St. Joseph Hospital for a repair of his left Achilles tendon. According to an investigative report filed with the Maine Board of Licensure of Podiatric Medicine, which investigates complaints against foot doctors, Darcy initially marked Hicks’ left foot for surgery. He conferred with an anesthesiologist, who numbed the left leg. The doctors and nurses took a brief pause before coming back to prepare Hicks’ leg for surgery. When they returned, they mistakenly marked and prepped Hicks’ right leg for surgery rather than his left. Darcy then operated on the incorrect foot. “When Randy came out of anesthesia, his left leg was still numb from the nerve block, but his right leg was bandaged and painful,” the civil complaint filed this week says. Advertisement A nurse at St. Joseph Hospital described the morning of the surgery as “hectic,” according to the licensing board report. Surgeries were running behind schedule and computer issues prevented doctors from reviewing patient photos. Hicks’ surgery began without a formal “time out,” where doctors and nurses pause before a procedure to ensure everything is going according to plan. “(Darcy) acknowledged that he should have done the ‘time out,'” the report read. “He did not catch that the wrong limb had been prepped, and admitted ‘That was my error.'” Related [A Bangor doctor operated on the wrong foot. 7 years later, he did it again.](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/02/20/a-bangor-doctor-operated-on-the-wrong-foot-7-years-later-he-did-it-again/) Despite the wrong site surgery on Hicks’ right foot, Darcy did complete the procedure on the left foot. He amended the report to reflect his mistake about a week later. Hicks required two additional procedures as a result of the botched surgery: One to correctly treat the pain in his left foot and another to address nerve damage sustained during the mistaken operation. “After Dr. Darcy performed wrong site surgery on Randy Hicks, Randy experienced complications in his right leg, including a nerve injury that required a subsequent surgery,” the civil complaint reads. “As a result, Randy experiences permanent pain and reduced function.” Advertisement Travis Brennan, an attorney representing Hicks, said the ordeal would have been entirely preventable if Darcy and others had followed “basic verification protocols that hospitals are required to follow.” “Wrong-site surgery is what patient safety experts call a ‘never event’ — a mistake that should never happen,” Brennan said in a statement. “This is a nightmare scenario for any patient — to go in for surgery on one limb and awake to discover it was performed on the wrong limb.” Darcy’s surgical privileges were revoked by St. Joseph Hospital and Northern Light Health in the months following Hicks’ surgery. The state’s licensing board issued lifetime restrictions on Darcy’s surgical license and placed him on three years’ probation. An attorney for Acadia Foot & Ankle, Darcy’s practice, declined to comment on the lawsuit. The lawyer representing St. Joseph Hospital and Covenant Health could not immediately be reached for comment. Mark Lavoie, who is representing Darcy individually, declined to comment on the specifics of the case but called his client “a good guy” and noted there were about a half dozen medical professionals in the room with Darcy who could also have paused the procedure before the wrong-site surgery occurred. Hicks’ 2024 surgery was the second time Darcy had mistakenly operated on the incorrect foot. Advertisement A similar incident unfolded in 2017, when Darcy was reprimanded by the Maine podiatric board and sued by a patient for amputating a toe on the wrong foot. In the previous instance, Darcy was scheduled to perform a partial amputation on the patient’s right big toe. But he provided a consent form that mistakenly described the operation as an amputation on the left foot. That’s the foot he operated on. The patient, a man from Corinth, later had to have much of his leg amputated due to complications from the botched operation. Darcy was put on probation by the state podiatric board and required to complete six hours of continuing education. The patient in that case also filed a suit against Darcy but later dropped his lawsuit. Copy the Story Link Tagged: [bangor maine](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/bangor-maine/), [milford maine](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/milford-maine/) [](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dylan-tusinski) [Dylan TusinskiStaff Writer](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dylan-tusinski) Dylan Tusinski is an investigative reporter with the Maine Trust for Local News' quick strike team, where his stories largely focus on money, drugs and government accountability. He has written about international. [More by Dylan Tusinski](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dylan-tusinski)