Neurosurgeon charged for botching several spinal surgeries

Christopher Duntsch

Christopher Duntsch, 44, a North Texas neurosurgeon, was charged for botching several spinal surgeries in 2011 and 2012, injuring 4 people and killing a woman. Duntsch whose bail was set at $600,000 was refused a reduction in bail by Judge Carter Thompson after an incriminating email was presented by prosecutors. The email which Duntsch sent to an employee reads: "I'm ready to leave the love and kindness and goodness and patience that I mix with everything else that I am and become a cold blooded killer."
Dallas police said in a search warrant affidavit that he is also under investigation in the botching of at least 10 other patients’ surgeries in Plano and Dallas that occurred from November 2011 through June 2013. Duntsch “knowingly takes actions that place the patients’ lives at risk,” police said, such as causing extreme blood loss by cutting a major vein and then not taking proper steps to correct it.
In one case, Duntsch left a surgical sponge inside a man's body. During that same surgery, another doctor forced him to stop operating because of his “unacceptable surgical technique,” the affidavit said.
Duntsch  will remain in a Dallas jail on the five counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and a count of injuring an elderly person — all during surgeries he performed at Dallas Medical Center, South Hampton Community Hospital and University General Hospital.

Phillip Mafield was one of Duntsch's patient left paralyzed from neck down

Phillip Mayfield, 45, was one of Duntsch's patients who woke up paralyzed from the neck down after his spinal surgery in April 2013. He was said to have told Dallas Morning News, "I am very well-pleased that he will remain in jail and that justice will eventually be served for the crimes that he has committed"            .