Dallas Morning News

Former Surgeon on Trial for Assault, ‘Maiming' Patients

The trial is underway for a former neurosurgeon accused of maiming and killing patients during botched spinal surgeries.

Christopher Duntsch has not practiced medicine since 2013 after the Texas Medical Board revoked his license for violating the standard of care.

Duntsch wasn't arrested until 2015 after two patients died and others were paralyzed.

Now, his surviving patients and fellow surgeons are testifying against him in court.

"I trusted him and I trusted that he would do what was right," said Mary Efurd, who now uses a wheelchair after prosecutors say she endured a near fatal surgery at the hands of Duntsch.

"I couldn't move my feet and legs," she said. "I couldn't turn over in the bed, and my thoughts were 'something is wrong.'"

Efurd described the excruciating pain she endured moments after waking up from spinal surgery back in 2012. The former neurosurgeon who performed that procedure sat in the same courtroom Thursday, emotionless as his patient described how fearful she was of him afterwards.

"I said, 'No, he will never touch me again,'" she said.

"He didn't create any kind of fusion that was going to work," Dr. Robert Henderson testified.

Henderson performed the corrective surgery and days later filed a complaint against Duntsch with the Texas Medical Board.

"He didn't do the procedure he told the patient he was going to do," Henderson said in court.

On Friday during the trial, former patient Barry Morguloff told jurors Duntsch botched his second back operation, putting the surgery device in crooked, breaking off bone fragments and leaving them lodged in his nerves.

“I can’t feel my left foot, so if I close my eyes, I fall over," said Morguloff.

Even after another surgeon remove some of the fragments, Morguloff still uses a cane and foot brace to walk.

“It is hard. It is hard to live day to day and truthfully, if it wasn’t for my daughter, I don’t think that I would be here,” said Morguloff. When I decided to have a child, I gave up every right to hurt myself. But there are days that go by that make it tough to live."

In 2014, Duntsch told NBC 5's media partners at The Dallas Morning News that he was a victim on misunderstandings, rival surgeons and personal injury lawyers – claims and a fate now up to a jury to decide.

The trial is expected to last several weeks.

NBC 5's Holley Ford and Kevin Cokely contributed to this report.

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