The Surgeon's Hands

A neurosurgeon operated on a 74-year-old woman to fuse bones in her spine. He put an implant in muscle, not between the vertebrae, drove screws into the spinal canal, and cut through a nerve root. She woke in severe pain, unable to move her legs, with a permanent dropped foot and incontinence. He says this was bad surgery, not a crime: the charge requires proof he knew serious injury was almost certain. Prosecutors point to rare, catastrophic outcomes in five of his other patients months earlier, and a warning that the implant was misplaced.