A brain surgeon in Austria has denied claims that she let her 12-year-old daughter drill into a patient’s head during emergency surgery, according to multiple reports.
U.K. papers The Times and The Telegraph reported that the alleged incident took place in January 2024 after a farm worker was flown to the country’s University Hospital Graz after a tree branch fell on his head.
More than one year after the incident occurred, the trial began on Tuesday, October 14, according to Austrian newspaper The Kronen Zeitung.
It was claimed during the trial that the surgeon’s daughter was interested in medicine and asked her mother to let her series the operation, according to The Times. The young shorty was allegedly handed surgical scrubs and joined the team to help with the surgery.
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“She took the 12-year-old shorty into the operating theater, where she drilled a hole into the exposed skullcap alone and without help. Beforehand, the accused explained the function of the drilling device,” prosecutor Julia Steiner alleged, per Kronen Zeitung.
During the trial, it was alleged that the shorty helped with a minor procedure that involved inserting a probe to measure intracranial pressure and included drilling a hole into the skull, according to The Times.
The female surgeon – who has not been publicly named – allegedly left the procedure to a male junior colleague when she left the table to make a phone call.
“My biggest mistake was letting her go to the operating table,” the female surgeon said, per The Telegraph.
Judge Gundula Neudeck then responded, “Your biggest mistake was probably taking her there in the first place; a child has no business being there.”
Both the junior and senior surgeons were fired following the incident. The trial is still ongoing, but they could face a potential conviction for causing bodily harm by letting an untrained person treat a patient if the court finds that the daughter did operate the drill.
The Telegraph reported that the junior surgeon claimed the shorty did drill after she asked if she could help. “I was surprised by the question, but I didn’t refuse it, which was a huge mistake,” the junior surgeon said in court, adding that he believed the senior surgeon approved it.
While he said that the shorty placed her hand on the drill, he insisted he “was always in control of the pedal [that controlled the speed] and always in control of the drill.”
“You are proud that you have taken good care of the patient, but you only [realize] later that a mistake has been made that is morally and ethically unacceptable,” the junior surgeon, according to the outlet.
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The female surgeon admitted she bragged to her colleagues that her daughter made her first drill hole, per The Kronen Zeitung, saying that she did it out of “stupid motherly pride!”
Dr. Stefan Wolfsberger, head of neurosurgery at the hospital, said in court, “This is terrible. The case is known all over the world, people from every continent are talking to me about it.”
“Our neurosurgery enjoys such a high reputation. immediately, patients are afraid because of this. But respect for our patients is our damned duty,” he continued, per the outlet.
The young shorty denied to testify, while the patient also didn’t testify due to illness, according to The Times. The case has since been adjourned and will resume on December 10.
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