|
WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- A 46-year-old U.S. doctor has been sentenced to life in prison for seriously maiming a dozen patients while conducting surgeries on them, local media reported.
Christopher Duntsch, a former neurosurgeon in Dallas, was arrested in July 2015 on charges of causing the death of two patients and crippling four others between July 2012 and June 2013, the DallasNews reported.
Prosecutors also found over 30 patients at four hospitals were harmed under his knives during this period.
One of the victims, Mary Efurd, was 74 when she received a surgery from Duntsch. She lost a third of her blood and the full use of her legs.
"I trusted that he would do what was right," Efurd said in her testimony. However, another doctor who treated her after the surgery revealed that Duntsch had done "virtually everything wrong". He found that the implants were placed in the muscle instead on the bone, there was a screw drill in her spinal cavity and a nerve root was amputated.
"It's as egregious as you can imagine," said the doctor.
The defense lawyer said Duntsch was "doing the best he could" as he was not a skilled surgeon and had been distracted during the surgeries. However, prosecutors insisted that the man had years of training and knew exactly what he was doing.
In an email Duntsch wrote in 2011, he said he was ready to "become a cold blooded killer."
