"I Have Killed Several People, With No Resentment": A Heart Surgeon

... including the patient who woke up and tried to move with her chest open



It sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Or perhaps a far-fetched Halloween spook-fest blockbuster.

Waking up half way through major surgery, inadequate amounts of anesthetic having been administered.

In a candid Ask Me Anything question-and-answer Reddit feed a heart surgeon openly discussed some of his most harrowing experiences, including one when a woman awoke on the operating table, her chest wide open.

Asked by user 'MechaLincoln' to describe the strangest thing to have happened during his medical career, 'eternal_wait' wrote: 'A patient waking up and trying to move with her chest opened, a really bad mistake from the anesthesiologist that day.




Casual attitude: The unnamed surgeon posted a photograph of himself giving the thumbs-up as he gets ready to assist in a bypass operation

'Cardiac surgery patients are at the highest risk of waking up during surgery because of the use of the artificial heart-lung machine, their drug distribution volume get really big so they need much more drugs to remain sleep.

'I've had other interesting moments,' the doctor added, 'but its really impressive to see a person with no heart trying to move.'

Fortunately for the patient in question she had no memory of the botched surgery after it was through, but others have been less lucky, as Reddit users were quick to point out.

In response the surgeon went onto explain that a drug named Midazolam is given in cases such as the woman's, 'that causes amnesia so the patient doesn't remember this traumatic experience.'




Shocking The surgeon shares his harrowing experience of botched surgery

It's an alarming truth for anyone who has ever gone under the knife. How would you know whether you slept through the whole procedure?

One such victim of sloppy drug administration was a user named 'luckynumbersevelyn' who posted: 'I woke up at the very end of my tonsil surgery.

'The breathing tube was still in and the nurse yanked it out like it was a rip-cord after freaking out that I was awake.

'I didn't remember right away, which actually was more traumatic because I remembered while I was half-asleep through a nightmare.'




Gory: The surgeon goes into grisly detail about what happens in chest operations

Horror stories continue throughout the feed, including one user who woke up mid-appendix surgery. 'I remember hearing the ripping of tape and feeling them stick it onto my cheeks,' he wrote.

'Then came the scalpel. I was trying to scream, trying to open my eyes, trying to move, but nothing. I could hear everything and feel it too'

The surgeon set up the AMA on Saturday, with the opening line: 'I have killed several people, with no resentment. AMA to find out how and why.'

Asked what it was like to have someone die on his operating table he wrote: 'First time was really bad for me, couldn't sleep for about two days.




Difficult questions: The surgeon describes how he deals with people dying on his operating table

'It was a very complicated patient with very low chances, after 10 hours of surgery we just had to give up, nothing else to do.'

In a shocking revelation of medical procedure, the doctor explained how he takes organs from 'living donors'.

'They are alive, but their brain has no blood flow,' he wrote. they would die eventually probably from an infection they got from the ventilator, neumonia more likely, or eventually their kidneys would fail.'

Asked if he has ever handled a still-beating heart he wrote: 'Yes, the recipients heart doesn't have to be stopped before taking it out so its beating and fibrilating while you do it.

'And in a less drastic manner, when you operate on a normal patient that you dont have to take out his heart you grab it a lot while its beating, you have to know how to do it in order not to kill him.'

Sounding vaguely obsessive he continued: 'What affects most people doesn't get to me. I find the inside of a chest beautiful, some people more than others.

'When you see that heart beating its like indescribable if you don't like it or find it gross. It's beautiful machine billions of years in the making, am getting dizzy here, better move to another question.'

The surgeon has since closed down the feed, which he described as an 'experiment' and has removed all photographs from the site.

He has not been identified but one photo still remains on Google, showing the surgeon getting ready to assist in a bypass operation.

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