SUNDAY SPECIAL Felled at the Line of Scrimmage
Former Jet, claiming he was cared for poorly after surgery, sues team docs

June 30, 2002

When offensive tackle Greg Lotysz of Thunder Bay, Ontario, arrived as a New York Jet in the spring of 1999, he carried with him a modest football resume

that included a 6-6, 310-pound body, Division II All-America honors at the University of North Dakota and years of dabbling in carpentry.

"I am not the best athlete; I'm not," said Lotysz, 28, from his home in Grand Forks, N.D. "But I'm a hard worker, and I found ways to get things done. That's the only reason I made it in the NFL."

His development caught the eye of Bill Parcells, who promoted him off the practice squad in 2000 and told him, "You're ready, kid, you're going to get some playing time.'"

Trouble is, Greg Lotysz's NFL career ended before it had a chance to begin.

In only his second practice of his second season with the team, Lotysz tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, as well as the medial collateral ligament, while bracing for contact on the line. There also was damage to the lateral meniscus.

A torn ACL is one of the more devastating sports injuries, yet common enough to offer hope for recovery. Surgery was scheduled with the Jets' team of orthopedic surgeons, Elliott Hershman and Ken Montgomery. Everyone was optimistic.

Not anticipated was an infection - and possibly two infections - that entered his system, presumably from the surgery. Lotysz, who never played in an NFL regular-season game, claims in a lawsuit that the ensuing damage ruined his knee and permanently disabled him. He says he has trouble standing, has trouble walking and has not been able to hold down a job since the initial surgery Aug. 7, 2000, at Lenox Hill Hospital.

He is suing Drs. Hershman and Montgomery, their private practice, Manhattan Orthopaedics; and another doctor, infectious disease specialist Evan Bell, for medical malpractice. He is seeking damages in the neighborhood of $10 million, according to his attorney, Bruce Clark. The lawsuit will face a hurdle at a July 8 hearing in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan on issues of workers' compensation law.

Hershman and Montgomery, who continue to work for the Jets, deny any wrongdoing. Bell preferred to speak with his lawyer, Nicholas Marotta, before commenting. Marotta declined to comment.

"We're really diligent about preventing infection in the operating room," Hershman said. "We're meticulous. It was really unfortunate that Greg got one."

Lotysz claims in the lawsuit that the doctors failed to detect or treat the initial infection quickly or aggressively enough. The resulting damage, Lotysz claims, was permanent deterioration of his knee, damage he believes was preventable.

"The Jets' medical staff made a mistake here," said Joe Linta, his agent, "and they need to own up to it."

Lotysz said he's beyond worrying about his lost NFL dreams. "I don't think about the football part anymore," he said during an interview. "I'd like to go for a walk with my wife, and maybe run around and play catch or touch football or baseball or softball with the guys. I can't do that. When you have to rub your knee every morning before you get out of bed, that's when you get bitter."

Lotysz also is angry about an NFL system he believes provides little protection for unheralded players such as himself. With a one-year contract and only one season of service, Lotysz fell short of being eligible for most benefits provided through the NFL Players Association such as severance pay, a pension or the annuity plan available to more experienced players.

"It's a warped story," Lotysz said. "Everybody hears about the Keyshawn Johnsons and Curtis Martins, but they don't hear about the guys that play one year and then get cut."

He is eligible for workers' compensation, reimbursement of medical and rehabilitation expenses, and disability, which he is pursuing with help from the NFLPA. The maximum disability payment allowed Lotysz from the NFL is about $1,000 a month.

Since they last saw him nearly two years ago, Lotysz's teammates have been wondering what became of him. Was he cut? Did he quit? One former teammate, Jason Ferguson, bumped into him at LaGuardia Airport last year and said he thought Lotysz had been playing in Europe.

"Nobody who reads this is probably going to remember Greg Lotysz," said J.J. Syvrud, a former Jets linebacker who shared a Point Lookout apartment with Lotysz in 1999. "And if my name is in there, nobody's going to remember me. We're no-names ... But he just didn't have an injury that put him out of football. He had an injury that put him out of life."

This is believed to be the first instance of an NFL player in New York suing his team's doctors for malpractice. And it isn't as simple as hiring a lawyer and filing the court papers.

As in most states, New York's workers' compensation law states that an employee cannot sue his employer or a fellow employee over a workplace injury. In this case, the employer is the Jets, and the doctors could be viewed as "fellow employees" in that they are hired and paid by the Jets.

Based on that law, Linta, Lotysz's agent, warns: "When you get operated on in New York by the team doctor, there is no culpability."

Clark has argued in a motion that the doctors should not be considered fellow employees because they are in private practice with relatively limited duties related to the Jets. Hershman and Montgomery are paid by the team, but they split their time between the Jets and private practice.

If the court rules that the lawsuit against the doctors can proceed, Clark said he plans to sue the Jets as well, accusing the club of negligence.

Peter Kopff, the lawyer representing the doctors, said he expects the case will be dismissed.

"If it isn't dismissed, [lead surgeon] Dr. Hershman will win the case on the merits," Kopff said. "This is a guarantee. There's no merit to this case."

The Jets issued this statement through team spokesman Ron Colangelo: "We're certainly aware of it, and it's being handled by the appropriate attorneys."

Elliot Pellman, chairman of the team's medical staff, declined comment.

"If the judge does not rule favorably on our motion, then I wish Greg luck," Clark said. "There's nothing that we can do."

The lawyer handling Lotysz's workers' compensation case, Eric Fogelgaren, said the maximum workers' compensation that Lotysz would be eligible to receive under New York State law is $400 per week. Add to that the maximum benefit from the NFL's disability plan - $1,000 a month - and the most Lotysz can receive in combined disability benefits is $32,800 per year. He did not have any private disability insurance.

"His knee is a mess," Fogelgaren said. "There's no other way to describe it."

When Lotysz learned at the start of 2000 training camp that he'd be practicing with the first team, he couldn't wait to tell his wife, Heather, and his agent.

His father, John, was proud: "The work and the effort that went into it. You figure, 'That's it. He made it.' And then 'bang.'"

On July 15, 2000, on the last play of the second day of camp, Lotysz lined up against then-rookie John Abraham, a first-round draft pick with uncanny speed. Lotysz went into his backpedal and braced himself for Abraham's inside move. There was no contact with the knee, only silence when Lotysz crumpled to the turf, his knee grotesquely twisted.

"His knee just gave out," Syvrud said. "It went every which way and that was it. They called the practice after that."

According to Nicholas DiNubile of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, there are about 50,000 ACL reconstructions performed in the United States each year. The infection rate is less than 1 percent, DiNubile said.

There are differing opinions as to who, if anyone, is to blame for what happened to Lotysz.

"Out of 100 guys who have this happen to them, one guy gets an infection and 99 get healed," said Jets center Kevin Mawae, the team's union representative. "He might have been the one guy."

Hershman, who has been the team's orthopedic surgeon since 1991 and has worked on the medical staff since 1987, said he has been sued once before, but never by a player and never over a knee operation. He denied the accusations, and because of the litigation, would not discuss specifics, including how the infection was treated.

"We tried," Hershman said. "We did surgery, gave him medicine, did lots of treatment to get it better. He ended up, unfortunately, with problems. We worked hard at trying to eliminate an infection."

Hershman said Lotysz is his only patient in 15 years to develop an infection after knee surgery. He said he doesn't know how Lotysz's knee became infected, and even Lotysz's attorney, Clark, admitted, "You can't say where it came from."

Montgomery, Hershman's associate for the past three seasons with the Jets, said Lotysz "was treated to the best medical care that we could give him, despite the fact that he feels that he wasn't ... Decisions were not made randomly or with disregard."

Montgomery said he cannot comment on specifics: "I know Greg Lotysz's side of the story, and I know what actually happened, too. Obviously, the reality is somewhere in between."

Lotysz went in for reconstructive knee surgery on Aug. 7, 2000. Hershman grafted Lotysz's patella tendon to make a new ACL, a fairly common procedure.

According to a diary Lotysz says he and his wife started - on the advice of several teammates - the day of his surgery, he began rehabilitation Aug. 13 and complained to the Jets' trainers about swelling, heat and pain in the knee. He said he was told that it was a normal response to surgical trauma.

Lotysz claims in the lawsuit that Bell and the other doctors did not fully take into account the fact that his spleen had been removed as a teenager. The spleen can help the body fight infection. According to hospital records obtained by Lotysz's attorney, Lotysz was treated with antibiotics in the hospital.

Lotysz wrote in the diary that the Jets' trainers first expressed concern about swelling Aug. 25 and asked Lotysz, "What did you do?" He told them he'd gone to the movies the night before but had kept the leg elevated.

Lotysz wrote that he consistently complained that his knee was swollen and hot to the touch for more than two weeks before Hershman gave him two penicillin tablets Aug. 30. Hershman flushed the knee in a surgical procedure the next day at Lenox Hill Hospital, and a culture on Sept. 2 confirmed the presence of an infection known as an enterobacter, a virulent bacteria that is normally found in the intestinal tract and sometimes in hip and knee replacements.

Lotysz wrote that he was told that his surgically grafted ACL appeared intact, but the impact of the infection wouldn't be known for several weeks.

Hershman consulted with Bell, the infectious disease specialist, and Lotysz was sent home from the hospital Sept. 4 and prescribed oral ciprofloxacin to fight the infection, according to his notes.

Pain and swelling returned during the next week, Lotysz wrote. He reported to the Jets' practice facility at Hofstra on Saturday, Sept. 9, a day off, and said, "I'm not leaving until you do something about my leg." According to Lotysz, Montgomery withdrew some red, cloudy fluid from the knee and told him to see Hershman on Sept. 13. Hershman scheduled a second cleanout procedure for Sept. 15.

"For the next 48 hours, I was swallowing painkillers like crazy," Lotysz later said. "I said, 'Am I going to lose my leg? I'm really worried.'"

Lotysz's diary indicated that Montgomery told him on Monday, Sept. 18, that the latest culture was negative and that the knee looked better. He was eating little, devouring painkillers and sleeping less than three hours a night. He'd lost more than 50 pounds.

Syvrud said: "With his leg, you could just see his calf. If you could just imagine, it felt like if you filled a balloon with mashed potatoes. It was gross. It was huge and had a big, nasty scar."

Lotysz wrote that in his weekly visit with Hershman on Wednesday, Sept. 20, Hershman told him the knee looked good and that swelling would decrease in a couple of weeks. The same day, on the advice of his agent, Lotysz went to Dr. Jack Kelly in New Guilford, Conn., for a second opinion. Kelly referred him to Russell Warren, the Giants' doctor, who works at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan.

"He [Warren] plunged the needle into my leg and looked at it and said, 'Get this guy a bed,'" Lotysz said. "It looked like bloody horseradish. He said, 'Your knee's infected.' I said, 'My doctors told me it's not.' He said, 'I don't care what your doctor said; it's obvious it's infected.'"

Lotysz said that on Sept. 21, Warren removed the new ACL, which was damaged by the infection, and all the hardware from the initial surgery because, Warren told him, they had become a breeding ground for the bacteria. Lotysz said he was prescribed intravenous antibiotics. On Sept. 26, Lotysz said in the diary, Warren told him the culture confirmed the presence of two infections: the enterobacter and a staph infection.

To clear up the infections, Lotysz spent a week in the hospital. In that time, he was visited by Hershman. "I just went to express how much I cared about him and his career and everything that happened to him," Hershman said recently.

Lotysz remembers that the Jets' surgeon offered him shorts and T-shirts with the team logo. That was the last contact between Lotysz and Hershman.

Lotysz says in the lawsuit that from September to January, he was either bedridden or unable to walk without the help of a crutch.

In January 2001, Warren rebuilt Lotysz's knee with a cadaver ACL. His long-term prognosis is uncertain, but Lotysz said doctors have told him he will have arthritis and probably will require knee-replacement surgery in his mid-30s. He said he has pain, swelling and bone-on-bone contact in the knee.

"We have medical evidence he has a permanent condition," said Fogelgaren, who has been handling workers' comp cases through the NFLPA since 1981. "There's no question about that. I don't think will be contesting the fact that he has a permanent condition."

Kopff said the Jets' doctors' decision to try to heal Lotysz with antibiotics rather than removing the ACL was proof that they tried to cure him and save his playing career.

"You can abandon ship, and then the patient has to go through another surgery," Kopff said. "That's a judgment call ... The fact that Dr. Warren makes a different judgment however many days later, that's fine for him. Reasonable doctors differ. That's not malpractice by Dr. Hershman."

When asked for comment on the Lotysz case, Warren declined through Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon. If this case goes to trial, Warren likely will be called as a witness. Clark said he also plans to get testimony from Parcells, former coach Al Groh, former offensive line coach Bill Muir, and members of the team's management and medical staffs. Parcells did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Jets general manager Terry Bradway, who was not with the team until 2001, said the Jets have paid Lotysz what he is due contractually - for medical expenses and rehab and the injury proration of his salary, approximately $111,000 of his $193,000 one-year contract. All his medical expenses are covered by the team's insurance, except prescriptions and transportation.

Lotysz also is pained by what he perceives as indifference on the part of the Jets to help him recover from the financial and personal hardship created by the injury. He claims that owner Woody Johnson did not respond to his phone calls during his treatment, and that team management "turned their back on me."

When asked about Lotysz during a recent practice at Hofstra, the team owner said: "As far as I know, we try to take care of the players and get them the best medical treatment we can get them and the best hospitals and the best diet. Here today, gone tomorrow is part of life in every profession, in every activity."

Lotysz's former teammates remember him fondly as a hard worker. Syvrud recalls Groh saying to a group of players, "No one is working harder to make this team than Lotysz." But while Lotysz is convinced that he would have been treated better if he had been a star, some of his teammates disagree.

"The team did what they were supposed to do according to the contract," Mawae said. "The team is not obligated to do anything else."

Jets guard Randy Thomas worries that Lotysz has let the injury consume him. "I would tell him to get on with life and be strong," he said.

Lotysz said he tried to work for a semester as a graduate assistant with the North Dakota football team but had to quit because of the constant pain. He is pursuing a master's degree, working on a thesis titled: "The Effects of Termination from the NFL."

When his wife, a breast cancer survivor, works as a bank teller, Lotysz takes care of their 3-month-old son, Peyton.

"He's a 310-pound man, and I'm helping get him in and out of bed," Heather Lotysz said. "We're both not even 30 years old and it seems we've spent more time in hospitals than at home."

Lotysz said he just wants his story to be heard.

"It's not about playing football anymore," he said. "It's about today, tomorrow and the next day."

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.