Brain surgeon is arrested after ‘permitting her 12-year-old daughter to drill a gap in a affected person’s cranium’

A brain surgeon has been arrested after allegedly allowing her 12-year-old daughter to drill a hole in a patient’s skull.

On January 13, 2024, a 33-year-old man was admitted to Graz Regional Hospital in Austria following a serious accident. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury and required immediate surgery.

The operation was reportedly carried out by a doctor and senior physician, and at the time, the neurosurgeon who was still in training, had brought her daughter into the operating room.

When the operation was almost complete, the defendant allegedly handed her daughter the drill so that she could create a hole for the probe, according to the indictment.

Prosecutor Julia Steiner said the surgeon had then proudly announced that her daughter had just had her first gynecological hysterectomy, as per Kurier.

The case was opened following a spate of anonymous reports, but even though the operation was carried out without complication, ‘the risk cannot be downplayed,’ Steiner emphasised.

She added that the move was ‘an incredible lack of respect for the patient’.

The neurosurgeon’s lawyer, Bernhard Lehofer, explicitly claimed: ‘The child did not drill,’ and that the doctor always had control over the machine.  

When the operation was almost complete, the defendant allegedly handed her daughter the drill so that she could create a hole for the probe, according to the indictment (file photo)

He added that it was ‘not a good idea’ to take her daughter into the operating room, but that she has now paid for this mistake for almost two years.

Attorney Michael Kropiunig, representing the doctor, pointed out that his client didn’t know the child’s age. 

‘He allowed her to put her hand on his hand while he was operating the drill, but that’s not relevant in criminal proceedings,’ he said.

The neurosurgeon and doctor attended the Graz-East District Court on Tuesday, where they both pleaded not guilty to minor bodily harm, according to the newspaper.

The doctor described how at the end of the surgery his colleague had left to make a phone call when the 12-year-old asked him if she could help.

He then claimed he asked her mother who gave her blessing, before letting her place her hand over his as he guided the drill.

The mother added that her daughter had been in her office studying all day and has requested to follow her into the operating room when she was called in.

She agreed to let her daughter watch on, but claimed not to have seen the critical moment with the drill in detail.

‘I was standing in the back and was distracted,’ the mother reportedly said. 

The prosecutor asked why she pressured her doctor colleague to keep quiet when the reports began emerging. The mother allegedly responded: ‘I wanted to protect him’.

The head of neurosurgery at the hospital, Stefan Wolfsberger , described finding an anonymous letter mentioning the incident. 

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said. 

Several employees had reportedly heard abut the incident and it became widely spoken about in the hospital. 

But due to the lack of physical witnesses to the incident, and as experts have also been called to speak, the case has been postponed and the trial will continue on December 10.