He had a bedroom upstairs in their Plano house. Passmore told D Magazine during an interview that he is uncomfortable receiving any attention but knows he must do so if anyone is going to listen. [19], In July 2015, approximately a year and a half after his license was revoked, Duntsch was arrested in Dallas and charged with six felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, and one count of injury to an elderly person. According to court documents, surgeons at the Minimally Invasive Spine Institute soon grew suspicious of Duntsch. They argued that Duntsch was motivated to continue operating because the lucrative salary of a neurosurgeon would solve his mounting financial problems. As a result, Summers lost almost 1,200 mL of blood. Death'? Though he appealed his conviction in 2018, it was denied. Three holes had been poked into Efurd's spinal column where Duntsch had tried and failed to insert screws. It was determined during the repair surgery that Dr. Duntsch had not even been operating on the correct part of Jeff Glidewell's spine. Vaccinated people who catch Covid are reporting unique symptoms - the 4 signs to watch for, Man, 34, charged with murder after woman, 63, killed in house fire as family vow 'you'll never be forgotten', Six dead after private jet crashes and explodes in fireball between two houses sparking forest blaze near golf course. Jerry Summers, who grew up with Christopher Duntsch in Tennessee, was left a quadriplegic after agreeing to let "Dr. Death" operate on his neck. He is currently appealing this sentence. The series follows two other surgeons, along with . Then, on December 6, 2011, he operated on seventy-four-year-old Mary Efurd. However, during training for neurosurgery he followed a research path and did fewer operations than most trainees. At the time, hospitals were not required to report doctors who only had temporary privileges. Every victim deserves to have their story told, and unfortunately, Christopher Duntsch, aka Dr. Death, has 33. Duntsch is a former Dallas neurosurgeon who, through . But when he awoke and was experiencing extreme pain, Dr. Duntsch said that surgery had been a success and there had been no complications. Kirby was shocked; he called the owner of University General and warned him that Duntsch would hurt someone, and the hospital would be over. A neurosurgeon in Dallas, Texas, who once described himself as a "stone cold killer" was sentenced to life in prison on February 20 for maiming a woman named Mary . Duntsch is the first physician sentenced to life in prison for his actions while practicing medicine. [4] In an article for The Texas Prosecutor, the journal of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, Shughart and the other members of the trial team recalled that their superiors were initially skeptical when they presented the case, but eventually found themselves in "overwhelming disbelief" that a surgeon could do what Duntsch was accused of doing. By this time, however, Brown was brain dead. But soon his patients started to experience complications, and the system failed to protect them. At one point, an assisting surgeon named Dr. Hoyle observed Duntsch performing such alarming and erratic behavior; he grabbed his hands and pleaded with him to stop. In February 2012, he went under the knife for an elective spinal fusion surgery. The hospital initiated another peer review, but Duntsch resigned rather than face certain termination. [27], While attempting to remove degenerated discs in Marshall "Tex" Muse's back, Duntsch left surgical hardware floating between the spine and muscle tissue. Glidewell was reportedly still suffering the ill effects of Duntsch's operation years later and has undergone more than 50 procedures to correct the damage. The Texas Medical Board would later conclude that Brown died of excessive blood loss and a stroke, according to The Texas Observer . A neurosurgery expert for Duntsch's defense team himself said, "The conditions which created Dr. Duntsch still exist, thereby making it possible for another to come along.". [18] Despite this, Duntsch was retained by South Hampton when new owners bought it and renamed it University General Hospital. On April 9, 2013, Phillip Mayfield was scheduled to have a simple 45-minute operation to alleviate his back pain. Dr. Henderson thought the operation on Mary Efurd was so botched that Christopher Duntsch had to be an imposter. Under heavy lobbying from Kirby and Henderson, the Texas Medical Board suspended Duntsch's license on June 26, 2013. Christopher Daniel Duntsch (born April 3, 1971) is a former American neurosurgeon who has been nicknamed Dr. D. and Dr. Death for gross malpractice resulting in the maiming of several patients' spines and two deaths while working at hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.. Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before his license was revoked by the . executive producer explains how Christopher Duntsch could have avoided prison. In his first surgery after his suspension lifted, he nicked the vertebral artery of Kellie Martin, a 55-year-old Garland woman. The deal required Duntsch to attain privileges at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano. February 22, 2017. In 2006, Duntsch teamed up with two Russian stem cell scientists: Valery Kukekov and Tatyana Ignatova. Lee Passmore was thirty-seven and worked as a field agent for the Collin County medical examiner. Dr. Fulton never worked with Duntsch again. When he arrived, Nurse Kyle Kissinger spotted a hole in Duntsch's scrubs. In 2017, Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of maiming one of his patients. [6], Christopher Duntsch was born in Montana and spent most of his youth in Memphis, Tennessee. Base compensation was $600,000 a year for two years, beginning on June 14, 2011. In May 2013, Dr. Randall Kirby was invited to a dinner by University General Hospital to meet their new neurosurgeon, Dr. Duntsch. A patient who was left barely able to walk and in constant pain after undergoing two botched surgeries at the hands of killer neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch says he 'guarantees' there are other . He declared bankruptcy after listing debts of over $1 million. For the last three days, jurors listened to testimony in the . He then packed it with too much of a substance intended to stop the bleeding. Prosecutors also faulted Duntsch's employers for not reporting him. The Dallas district attorney's office subpoenaed every hospital on Duntsch's CV for records of his surgeries. Unfortunately, when Morguloff woke up, he began to experience continuous pain, paresthesia, and loss of sensation in his left leg. At the time, Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before the Texas Medical Board revoked his license. By this time, Jerry Summers, his childhood friend, had moved from Tennessee to live with Duntsch. Donald Duntsch was a gridiron football standout in Montana, and Christopher was determined to follow in those footsteps. [7] While operating on Jacqueline Troy, Duntsch cut one of her vocal cords and an artery and also damaged her trachea. Barry Morguloff, the owner of a pool service company, was left with bone fragments in his spinal canal after Duntsch tried to pull a damaged, Jerry Summers, a longtime friend of Duntsch's, came to Plano to have, Kellie Martin was undergoing a routine back operation when Duntsch cut through her spinal cord and severed an artery. The surgical disasters of neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch led to his jailing in 2017, setting a legal precedent. However, things soon went south. Duntsch initially attended Millsaps College to play Division III college football, and later transferred to Division I Colorado State University. It involves the case of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a spinal neurosurgeon who left a trail of dead and permanently disabled . Dr. Death in surgery. Over the course of 18-months, the nefarious ex-surgeon performed a spree of botched . Dr. Hassan Chahadeh, the owner, said when Duntsch had applied for privileges, his record was clean. Many of his patients suffered severe spinal cord damage, resulting in paralysis and pain severe enough to render painkillers ineffective. Lee Passmore's screams poured out from the ICU and down the hallway. Despite this refusal, Duntsch was allowed to finish his residency. He recommended fusing two of her vertebrae and the insertion of "hardware" in her spinal area. His very first operation at the hospital would once again turn deadly. Caroline is a writer and Florida-transplant currently living in New York City. During his surgery, Duntsch didnt installed the necessary hardware to Muses spine and instead had left it floating between the spine and muscle tissue. He proved to be Duntsch's last surgery; University General pushed him out soon afterward. 2-Dr.Randall Kirby, a hero. [3], Duntsch was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than two years before his license was revoked by the Texas Medical Board. Film & TV 'Dr. Death' Condemns Christopher Duntsch, but the Real Culprit Is Texas's Broken Health-Care System I helped break the story on the convicted surgeon, but Peacock's dramatized . Duntsch stuffed a surgical sponge in Glidewell's throat to stanch the bleeding. Over the course of two years, Christopher Duntsch operated on 38 patients in the Dallas area. The last charge was for the maiming and paralyzing of Efurd. However, Mayfield still woke up with paralysis on occasion. He later told Glidewell that it was clear Duntsch had tried to kill him. "If he wasn't doing research, he was out with Jerry Summers, partying," Morgan said in her deposition. [46], Dr. Death, a TV mini-series based on the podcast, began streaming on Peacock on July 15, 2021. An anesthesiologist and Dr. Anson Fulton, who assisted with the surgery, warned Duntsch about the blood loss, and he continued to ignore them and operate. An MRI revealed that multiple bone fragments in his spinal canal were compressing and adhering to his S1 nerve and that Duntsch had installed the hardware incorrectly. ", "Greg Abbott Enters Fray in Lawsuits Involving "Sociopath" Doctor", "Abbott sides with Baylor hospital in neurosurgeon lawsuit", "Who Are Robert Henderson And Randall Kirby, The Surgeons Who Tried To Stop 'Dr. He completed a spine fellowship program at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic in Memphis for his surgical residency, spending the standard five years on neurosurgery and one-year learning general surgery. Joshua Jackson went to the dark side to play Dr. Christopher Duntsch, who's serving a life sentence for maiming a woman during surgery, in the new Peacock series Dr. Death. Dr. Death was fired before the end of his first week for the damage hed inflicted on Brown and Efurd. [36] On February 20, 2017, he was sentenced to life in prison. In November 2011, he was hooked on the prescription opiates that numbed the pain in his lower back. Unfortunately, it's all too real. Christopher Duntsch was sentenced to life in prison in February 2017 for his heinous acts. Dr. Duntsch assured Muse that the pain was normal and prescribed him, strong pain killers, causing him to spiral into an addiction. Death.. Baylor suspended Duntsch, pictured, for a month. The television series Dr. Death based on the incident, began streaming on Peacock in July 2021. The story of Dr. Death, Christopher Duntsch, feels like something out of a movie or book. Shughart argued that Duntsch should have known he would hurt others unless he changed his approach and that his failure to learn from his past mistakes demonstrated that his maiming of Efurd was intentional.
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