Robot knocks assisting medic's hand during routine heart surgery leading to tragic death of 69-year-old patient
A groundbreaking heart surgery that was being assisted by a robotic surgeon went catastrophically wrong after it "spiraled out of control" and resulted in the death of a father-of-three, an inquest has heard.
Sixty nine-year-old retired music teacher and conductor Stephen Pettitt went under the knife at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital in February 2015 for a seemingly routine heart valve repair, but would tragically die after a series of mishaps and mistakes.
The Daily Mail reported the developments in the inquiry, which laid bare how underprepared the surgeons were as they undertook the operation. Lead surgeon Sukumaran Nair confessed he was "running before he could walk" in using the robot, christened Da Vinci, as he had not even used it in a training capacity. He is also said to have missed a training session in Paris that taught surgeons to use the robot on a cadaver, as well as another such session at his hospital because he was busy with surgery.
