Woman Sues Vet for Allegedly Leaving Surgical Tool Inside Her Puppy Before the Dog Died 2 Years Later: ‘I Was Furious’

A Rhode Island woman is reportedly suing a veterinarian after her dog allegedly died when a surgical tool was left inside its abdomen.

Kristen Breton of Lincoln, R.I. said she brought her St. Bernard puppy, Princess Freckles, to Dr. Deborah Hirschmann at the Rhode Island Animal Medical Center to be spayed and undergo a routine stomach procedure in August 2022, according to local news outlet WPRI 12.

Breton told the outlet that the medical center was not her usual veterinarian office but that her preferred vet’s office was under construction at the time.

She added that Princess Freckles seemed to recover from the surgery. However, she recalled that she noticed her dog had developed minor stomach issues, which she at first attributed to a potential food allergy.

“It started to dawn on me that maybe she was eating too much grass,” Breton recalled. “Because they do that. You start to do the logical rule-outs: Is it a food sensitivity? Or is there something else going on?”

The St. Bernard’s symptoms began to worsen over the course of two years — so bad that Breton said the dog was regularly projectile vomiting. Breton remembered that she rushed her pet to a different veterinary practice, where she underwent X-rays. The X-rays attached to the complaint appear to uncover a metal object in the dog’s abdomen.

According to a necropsy report attached to the lawsuit, the vet reportedly then told Breton that Princess Freckles would need to undergo invasive emergency surgery and that she might not survive due to her already severely compromised state. It was at this point that Brenton made the difficult decision to euthanize her 3-year-old dog.

“I was not expecting to put her down,” Breton told the outlet. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was coming home without my dog.”

The necropsy also claimed that the object in Princess Freckles’ stomach was a surgical instrument known as a hemostat as well as surgical gauze.

“That was the domino that put the whole story together,” Breton shared. “I was furious that it was preventable, and she suffered the entire time.”

Breton and her family have filed a lawsuit against Dr. Hirschmann, who has since been placed on probation, according to an order made public by the Rhode Island Department of Health.

“A lot of what this case is about is giving a voice to the voiceless because there’s no one who has less of a voice than a nonverbal patient like a dog, who can’t say if the pain they are experiencing is more serious than a normal sickness,” said Marshall M. Raucci, the attorney representing the case on behalf of the Breton family, in a phone call with PEOPLE.

“The law is truly not on our side because the law hasn’t caught up to where we are as a society,” he continued, noting that while claims for damages can be filed for the destruction of livestock, Rhode Island residents cannot file wrongful death suits on behalf of their pets.

“So I took the case knowing that the law is decidedly not with us,” he said, adding that he hopes the case “calls attention to the fact that we don’t have one of these laws” and encourages lawmakers to enact bills and legislation to protect pets and their owners better.

In a statement to WPRI, Dr. Hirchmann’s attorney, Lauri Christensen, said that her client has been a veterinarian since 2011 and “never experienced this type of surgical error.”

“Hirschmann was unaware that she inadvertently left a piece of gauze and a pair of hemostats in the abdomen of Princess Freckles,” she continued. “It is Hirschmann’s practice to inspect the abdominal cavity upon completion of the surgery prior to closing the incision.”

PEOPLE contacted Christensen and the Rhode Island Animal Medical Center, where Dr. Hirschmann worked at the time of the incident, for comment on Sunday, Jan. 12, but did not receive an immediate response.

Speaking to news outlet WDBJ 7, Breton said she and her two children will always never forget Freckles, “She just had a big personality. Everyone loved her.”