Has anyone died during surgery due to an accident that caused serious trauma?
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XOIIO (
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June 18th, 2014
Watching some surgeon simulator gameplay again, and it got me thinking, has there ever been a case of someone dying during surgery by a doctor dropping something like a saw into a patient causing lots of trauma, or some other thing, maybe due to an earthquake?
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Of course, whatever the trauma is many people die during surgery and surgeons have sewn up people with all kinds of surgical paraphanalia in them. Sponges, hemostats, etc.
Not me, but I’m sure it has happened to others.
I believe this sort of thing is the original basis for malpractice insurance.
There are lots of cases where people die from bleeding out because an artery or vein is snipped or nicked. And that’s not even because of an earthquake or dropping something heavy.
There was a case early on in the history of surgery where a surgeon (whose name escapes me at the present) killed 3 people during a single procedure. The procedure was a leg amputation and before the discovery on anaesthesia speed was considered a bonus. The surgeon in question could amputate a leg in 19 seconds. During one particular surgery he managed to cut off the fingers of his assistant who died of septicaemia and sliced through the trousers of a member of the audience while changing blades who died from shock of the thought his member may have been dismembered. The patient obviously didn’t make it either.
It’s safe to say that no jelly currently here has died from any medical procedure. Just sayin’.
My friend’s neighbor died from a mistake on the part of her doctor. The family got oodles of money from the malpractice suit, and built a huge house. The dad re-married, the new wife alienated the step-kids, and literally drove them from the home. What a mess.
In 1990 there was an operating room fire at UCLA accidentally started by electro-cautery. Personnel trying to save the patient from flames were overcome by smoke and had to evacuate. The patient died.
I read a bunch of studies on cholecystectomies in particular before having my own gallbladder removed, and the operative mortality rate for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy is something like ½ of 1%. That’s just one form of one procedure.
Battlefield MASH units have plenty of stories to tell to this regard.
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