  SEATTLE (Reuters) - Even the best surgeons occasionally leave foot-long metal instruments inside their patients -- though it happens very rarely, officials at a Seattle hospital said on Friday. Just days after announcing they were paying a tumor patient $97,000 for leaving a retractor inside him after surgery, the University of Washington Medical Center said similar accidents happen about once a year.
Specifically, the hospital said four similar accidents had occurred there since 1997, or about once every 12,000 operations. As a doctor stitches up an abdomen, he gradually pushes the patient's bowels back in, leaving just a tiny portion of the retractor extending from the incision, said Carlos Pellegrini, chairman of the surgery department at the university, as he demonstrated on a mannequin for reporters. ``As you can see it is relatively easy to leave this instrument in an incision like this,'' Pellegrini said.
The hospital on Tuesday said it apologized to Donald Church, 49, for leaving a 13-inch retractor inside him for 30 days in June 2000, despite his complaints about pain. Hospital officials now plan to hire extra nurses to count retractors to ensure no more are left behind. Until now, the hospital has counted needles, sponges and other small surgical items, but not larger instruments, of which doctors might use as many as 600 in a single surgery. 
