The surgery was scheduled: just a few hours in the operating room to correct a congenital lung malformation. However, it went wrong: the surgeon, by mistake, cut the child's aorta after mistaking it for a secondary blood vessel. It was a matter of millimeters, but it marked the fate of a ten-month-old baby.

After the tragedy, they have opened an investigation and four doctors are accused of murder, including the head of the department of Pediatric Surgery at the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin. The director is accused of having commissioned the operation to a professional specialized in adult surgery – who is also being investigated. In addition, the prosecutor has also focused on the anaesthetist and another doctor who were present during the intervention. According to the Prosecutor's Office, if the child had been monitored with a pulse oximeter, the error would have been detected immediately.

Two years have passed since the family, represented by lawyer Michela Malerba, filed the complaint for the death of the child that triggered the beginning of a judicial process that is still to be defined.

The little boy underwent surgery for this lobectomy on April 15, 2021. This is an operation that involves the removal of a lung lobe. And during this procedure the surgeon cut the boy's aorta, according to the indictment. Unlike adults, in children, bleeding is slower, so no one on the team noticed anything until three and a half hours later, when the baby's vital values collapsed. At that time, other doctors tried to do an emergency operation, but could no longer do anything to save the little boy's life.

At first, the investigation involved the nine doctors of the two teams that performed both interventions, but later the accusation was limited to the four professionals who participated in the first operation and exempted from responsibility the doctors who participated in the second intervention to try to save his life.

According to experts, the child died due to the cut of the aorta that occurred during the lobectomy. And, in addition, they assure that the baby was not monitored by a pulse oximeter that kept blood oxygen saturation under control during the operation and this instrument would have allowed to register anomalous values in the operating room. In addition, they consider that the operation, which is rare, should have been carried out in a specialized center.

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