Doc brief

NO FAULT TRAGEDY

In Sutcliffe v BMI Healthcare Ltd (2007) EWCA Civ 476, Mr Sutcliffe had been a keen amateur rugby football player, aged 33, who underwent a routine operation on his injured knee. The operation was performed successfully and he appeared to be making an uneventful recovery—although naturally suffering pain which he controlled through standard self-administered doses of morphine. He spent a sleepless night and fell asleep at 6.00am, when the decision was taken to let him sleep undisturbed. At 8.15am he still seemed to be in untroubled sleep. At some point thereafter he appears to have vomited and, whereas the normal reaction would have been to have woken up, coughed and removed any obstruction to the airways, Mr Sutcliffe’s reactions, perhaps dulled by the morphine, had been impaired with the consequence that the vomited matter had entered his lungs, obstructing the flow of oxygen. As a consequence he suffered massive brain damage from which he will not recover.

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