An Ohio woman is suing her gynecologist for allegedly spraying a chemical used in drain cleaner into her private parts.
The woman, who is only being identified as "Laura," said she visited her gynecologist, Dr. John Black, in his Akron, Ohio, office for a routine gynecological exam called a colposcopy.
At one point, she said Dr. Black squirted some liquid from a spray bottle marked "vinegar" onto her sex organs and into her vaginal canal.
She immediately felt horrible pain and burning down there.
"It was like an open cut with rubbing alcohol being poured into it," she said, according to UPI.com.
Laura said Black noticed her reaction and placed a tiny amount of the solution he used on her into a cup.
Medical records say Black "tasted it on the tip of his tongue which immediately started to burn."
Then he allegedly told his suffering patient, "I'm breaking all the rules" and proceeded to irrigate the burned area with three bottles of saline solution. He also applied a cream inside her to numb the pain -- without wearing gloves, according to Laura's husband, Paul.
"He puts an ungloved dirty finger inside her and rubs a numbing cream inside her. It's disgusting," Paul told WKYC-TV.
Tests on Laura determined that the chemical that her doctor thought was vinegar was actually potassium hydroxide, a chemical found in drain cleaner, that can decompose human flesh.
A few hours after seeing Laura, Black called her and suggested she go to to Akron General Hospital’s emergency room. There, doctors discovered a plastic bottle cap inside her cervix, RawStory.com reported.
In addition, they discovered the pH level of the liquid sprayed inside Laura’s body was not the harmless 7.5 level that Black claimed, but was 12 or higher, a level damaging to the human body.
Laura and Paul have filed a malpractice suit against Black and his employer, Paragon Health Associates. The company denies all their allegations, but said that Black sprayed what he thought was a vinegar liquid into her vagina, USA Today reported.
Laura said she experiences ongoing, irregular bleeding as a result of Black's actions and is no longer able to have sex with her husband. She also said she hoped to have more children, but now believes she will need a hysterectomy, the Daily Mail reported.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said potassium chloride was the chemical sprayed on the woman's sex organs. It was potassium hydroxide.