Jenks’s three-hour operation in December 2011 initially appeared to go well, according to medical records obtained by the Globe. Lawyers for Wood and the hospital said in the court filing that Jenks’s treatment “met or exceeded the standard of care.”

Two weeks later, however, Jenks felt what he said seemed like a cup of water spurt from the surgical wound in his back at home in Mesa, Ariz. Then he had an excruciating headache. It turned out that he had suffered a tear in the dural sac that covers the spine and leaked spinal fluid.