Jonathan D. Marx

10 years ago today. My wife and I (we were only dating at the time) survived getting hit by a drunk driver. A 17 year old kid who had been partying the night before and was so blitzed that he thought it would be a good idea to use his crappy mid 90’s BMW to pass 6 people around a blind curve. When he saw us he lost control while in our lane and because of a guardrail there was no place to go and we hit him.

Dr Vaishnavy Laxman is a consultant gynaecologist who accidentally decapitated a baby while the child was still within the womb. During a breech birth, where the baby is presenting feet first, instead of conducting a caesarean section Dr Laxman continued to attempt a natural delivery. The General Medical Council have since clarified that a vaginal delivery should never be attempted in this situation, as the baby was also exhibiting a slow heart rate.

Dr Laxman placed traction on the child’s feet, instructed the mother to push, and the child’s torso, arms and legs came away from the head. While the body of the child was delivered as a result of this manoeuvre, the head was retained in the uterus. The consultant attempted to deliver the head by cutting the cervix which was not fully dilated when the body had been delivered. However, it could not be removed, and two other consultants performed a caesarean section to remove it.

Doctors had to re-attach the head to the body in order to give the mother an opportunity to say goodbye and grieve for her child. The mother gave a harrowing account of her experiences during the birth at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service:

‘The only pain relief I was given was a spray on my tongue. I was told it was meant to loosen my cervix but I was not given gas and air – I was in pain. I had the doctors putting their hands inside me and I had them pushing on my stomach and then pulling me down. I tried to get off the bed but they pulled me back three times and just said they had to get the baby out. They twice tried to cut my cervix and nobody told me they were going to do it. There was no anaesthetic. I said to them “it doesn’t feel right, stop it, what’s going on, I don’t want to do it” but nobody responded to me in any way.’