Search Here

A jury has sentenced a former Dallas neurosurgeon to life in prison on Monday for killing two patients and maiming other patients who had turn to him for surgery. The decision came Monday afternoon, after a week the Dallas County jury convicted Christopher Duntsch. The 44-year-old was charged of first-degree felony injury to an elderly person.

Dunstch was the first doctor to be convicted in Dallas County. Numerous cases of malpractice were filed against the physician, which included that he improperly placed screws and plates along patient's spines, on another patient he left a sponge in and cut a major vein. Two of his patients died.

There were 34 people affected by Duntsch malpractice. Records showed that he also operated on the wrong part of a patient's spine. One woman was left wheelchair-dependent because of his surgeries.

Jerry Summers, one of his victims, had known Dunstch since they were children. He woke up after undergoing spinal surgery at Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano and was unable to move his arms or legs. Summers said in a video testimony that he didn't remember feeling pain that he just couldn't move.

"It just feels like your body weighs about 10,000 pounds and you can't pick it up," Summers said in the video testimony that was played in court. The video was shot in January in his home in Memphis, Tennessee, so that he didn't have to travel to Texas for the trial. He demonstrated how he is still unable to move his arms or legs  according to Daily Mail.

A surgeon that testified for the victims said it was like letting an amateur loose in surgery. But Duntsch's lawyers argued that he wasn't a criminal, just a lousy surgeon.

According to New York Daily News, prosecutors had accused Duntsch of causing the death of at least two between July 2012 and June 2013. The trial was centered on patient Mary Efurd, 74, when she underwent surgery in 2012. Evidence showed she lost a third of her blood volume and the use of a leg following her operation.